Joel Adria, 23, Floor Director - Helen Lawrence
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
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| Joel Adria |
Helen Lawrence was such an interesting experience that I had to go back. This time, yesterday Tuesday, I brought my retired CBC cameraman friend (busy shooting Hockey Night in Canada and several sitcoms, Mike Varga and my 16-year-old granddaughter Rebecca. I knew that the former would be intrigued by the elaborate technical side of the production and the latter might recognize the existence of heretofore unknown possible professions as career choices. And I am sure that Vancouver offers many institutions to teach this new theatrical method.
This second time around it had to be my
Rebecca who whispered in my ear, “The actors are filming themselves.” The first
time around I thought separate camera people were involved!
Thanks to the intervention of Front-of –the-House
Manager Peter Chapek and dramaturg Rachel Ditor we had the unusual pleasure of
talking to Stage Manager Jan Hodgson and Floor Director Joel Adria. Anybody who knows anything about theatre knows that the second most important person in a theatrical production after the director is the Stage Manager. Usually they are women and they are virtual dictators back stage. We talked to Joel Adria because Jan Hodgson had given her green light!
Mike Varga almost knew just about
everything we had seen but he had some doubts. Between Hodgson and Adria, they
managed to answer all of Varga’s rapid questions.
Now have a look at the portrait of Joel Adria.
He is 23-years-old (I hoped my Rebecca noticed that someone so young had such
an important job in a wide-open profession most of us are ignorant of). Joel
Adria graduated from the University of
Alberta at Edmonton. He calls himself a theatrical video
technician. I noticed a comfortable self-assurance in a young man that is bound
to go far (this was a comment by Mike Varga who can spot talent when he sees
it. Consider that I first met Varga at the CBC in 1977 when he was shooting
drama and variety special). I was able to understand little between with what transpired between Varga and Adria. But I did get that Adria faced a large monitor back stage and without him the production could sink. All that power and only 23!
Interesting, too that the modern actor (and actress) now, in order to get work, must manage to act, be slim, play a musical instrument (Jennifer Lines has played an accordion on stage), sing, dance (with that separate entity that I call tap dancing). Helen Lawrence now adds a new layer of necessary skill. Actors must know know how to skillfully handle a modern video camera.
Interesting, too that the modern actor (and actress) now, in order to get work, must manage to act, be slim, play a musical instrument (Jennifer Lines has played an accordion on stage), sing, dance (with that separate entity that I call tap dancing). Helen Lawrence now adds a new layer of necessary skill. Actors must know know how to skillfully handle a modern video camera.
It is my hope that more young people like
my granddaughter will be exposed to Helen Lawrence. The decision makers of
this production should tap Adria to give talks as Helen Lawrence travels across
Canada and from there to Europe. I found Adria charming and inspiring.
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| Mayor Gerry Grattan McGeer |
This is the background as I see it to
tonight’s terrific opening performance of the Arts Club Theatre Production of
Helen Lawrence – Vancouver Confidential. It was conceived by Stan Douglas with
story by Chris Haddock and Stan Douglas & written by Chris Haddock. It runs to April 13.
1. Bill Millerd in the program notes
writes:
In the spring of 2012 director Kim Collier (Tear the Curtain!/Electric
Theatre Company) talked to Rachel Ditor and myself about the project and we
became intrigued, not only by the new technology that Stan Douglas was working
on, but also the involvement of Chris Haddock.
2. Playback (a form of it) Raymond Chandler’s second-to-last novel (followed by the unfinished Poodle Springs) had been written in 1944
before, Little Sister,
1949, and The Long Goodbye,
1953.
I found this out in the introduction by Philippe Garnier to Playback - A Graphic Novel by Ted
Benoit and Francois Ayroles. The latter is the illustrator and the former the
man who adapted the original film treatment by Chandler who had tinkered with it until
1947 when he tried to sell it, unsuccessfully, to Universal Pictures.
What is interesting about this original screenplay was that it was set in Vancouver. Chandler wanted to
explore the ramifications of Canadian liquor laws, its justice system and wanted to
play with the idea of crossing borders with necessary documents. When Chandler was unable to sell his screenplay he moved the
action to La Jolla, California, and renamed it Esmeralda. The original
version of Playback begins with a beautiful blonde on a train to Vancouver.
3. I met Chris Haddock, if briefly behind
the scenes of Larry Campbell's victory night at the Vancouver Public Library
atrium in November 2002. I had taken the photographs for Campbell’s
campaign and I was aware how Campbell’s
career as City Coroner had been the inspiration for Haddock’s Da Vinci’s
Inquest. I think Haddock and I might have nodded at each other, we both knew
the man.
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| Larry Campbell & Jim Green, Nov 2002 |
4. When I saw the opening performance of
the joint Arts Club Theatre/Electric Theatre Company production of Tear the
Curtain on September 15, 2010 I was amazed by an original blend of theatre with
film that reminded me of a Czech theatre production called Magic Lantern that I
saw during the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. The production combined live theatre
with back projection.
5. Helen Lawrence is an almost seamless
(more on why below) improvement of what has preceded it.
In a seamless production you would be at the movies seeing
a film and not knowing that the actors in back alleys, hotel rooms and bars were
not there but on a lit stage and filmed while combining their images to the background
and foreground.
Luckily for us Helen Lawrence is done so that
you see the silhouettes of the camera persons behind the huge scrim in front on
which is projected that combination of actors and backgrounds. The actors are in
“living” colour but the finished product is in effective black and white with lots
of noir lighting touches.
The actors all look the part, in particular
Nicholas Lea (as Percy Walker, he of the hatpin), and Lisa Ryder as the Chandler blonde. Everybody
else is just about perfect.
But there was one person mentioned but not seen.
The Vancouver mayor,
shortly after the war, 1947 in Helen Lawrence, would have been Gerald (Gerry) Grattan McGeer. His picture is shown above. The likes of him would have
never allowed for a corrupt-on-the-take police chief like Gerard Plunkett’s Chief James Muldoon or
a nasty drunkard Sergeant Leonard Perkins played to tipsy perfection by Tom
McBeath. I just wish our Honourable Senator would have perhaps used spring break to appear in tonight's play. Campbell would have fitted in perfectly.
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| Major Larry Campbell - November 2002 |
I am a sucker for anything experimental and
I tip my hat to the Arts Club Theatre Company for taking a chance. I have
always considered Robert Montgomery’s 1947 camera-point-of-view film noir Lady
in the Lake a masterpiece.
Some might say why go to the Stanley to see a movie? I
would answer, “Go to the Stanley
to see a one take movie and you see it being filmed. Now that’s a movie you
will not see anywhere else.”
Malibu Noir
