Three Reviews by Corinna vanGerwen ire OF an 's by Corinna vanGerwen Mump and Smoot in Something Else with Zug February 24th to March 4th Vancouver East Cultural Centre ‘An incredible performance by the enlightening comic duo of Michael Kennard (Mump) and John Tumer (Smoot), Something Else is a whimsical tale of imagination, desire and barbarity. The performance had everything a clown performance should: colourful costumes, improvisation, and audience interaction. But there was so much more to this performance. Mump and Smoot speak in their own jargon which is an incredible demonstration of how arbi- trary the sounds that make up language are. They communicated a story of granted desires gone awry while at the mercy of Zug, a type of overlord with a maniacal laugh. The genius of the show was the ability to make us laugh at the horrible occurrences of a rabbit losing a leg in a magic trick, body parts being chopped off, and ridicul- ing the audience. | would highly recommend subjecting yourself to the twisted world of Mump and Smoot (unless you have a phobia of clowns). Oh, and if you don't want to be picked on | recommend staying far away from the front row and aisle seats. Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Great Composers Series Berlioz - February 5-7 ‘Orpheum Playing selections from Les Nuits D’été (poems by Théophile Gautier) and Symphonie Fantastique the VSO put on a decent performance but nothing moved my soul. The mezzo-soprano, Catherine Robbin, knew how to sing but her voice was meek and barely carried over the symphony. Luckily she didn't hang around for the second half (hopefully she had an appointment with a personal shopper to get her out of the horrendous green dress she was wearing and into something that wasn’t two decades out of date). The second half was much better and | particu- larly liked the final three selections of In the Country, The Procession to the Stake, and The Witches Sabbath. The SO can play, but whoever made the selection of music needs a little talking to. Beauty and the Beast Royal Winnipeg Ballet February 17-19 Queen Elizabeth Theatre Sitting down. to write this review | am torn as to whether Beauty and the Beast deserves my praise or whether it should be thrown in with a Russian judge. It was a quality performance, yet, when | sit to tell the wonderful tales of a Beast and his gid, | cannot help but remember all that which did not quite gel (perhaps this speaks more about my cynical self than about the performance). So, keep in mind that even with all the faults | am about to reveal | did still take delight in this dassic story. Although a traditional looking ballet at first glance, Beauty and the Beast differs greatly. One thing, which | an describe in no other way than that it irked me, is that it was narrated. Was the movement of the dancers lacking so that we had to be told the story or was it purely for the benefit of the children? Perhaps the cre- ators thought the audience so dumb it needed to be led through the story by hand. When you compare Beauty and the Beast to the classic children’s story of The ‘Nutcracker you can see that itis entirely unnecessary to have a narrator in order for the story to be understood. This I think is the fault of the choreography. It was not very clear what was happening. But this is where my appreciation comes in. The dancers were very capable and showed an astounding amount of strength. Even with the lack of decent choreography and a horrendous ‘musical selection (| had to sit through one very long scene of someone pounding away unintellgibly on an organ) the dancers did OK So | suppose that it does not take a perfect perfor- ‘mance to elicit appreciation. 25 @)