palacegrand

Premiered April 2004 at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre
Re-Commissioned in January 2008 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival

"A portrait of the Prospector writing a self portrait of the Prospector". This is Krapp's Last Tape set against the fallout of the Klondike Gold Rush and the decline of vaudeville theatre.

In 1898 a writer/explorer known only as Walker goes north to reclaim an abandoned mine in a remote ghost town. Months later he arrives, barely alive, and holes up on the stage of the decrepit Palace Grand theatre. His final means of survival, the only way left to impose order on the world as the killing cold of winter sets in -is to write. And then consume his writing as fuel. Read. Write. Re-read. Re-write. Speak it aloud. Hear it spoken. Perform it.

In a distant cabin, a distress call is received: "Save Me". A mysterious Tracker is sent to find Walker and bring him back alive. Abandoning all the comforts of home, he sets out, hauling his outmoded equipment on his back, transmitting dispatches from the trail. He tracks Walker to the Palace Grand.

Dark, poetic and stylistically daring, the play is an utterly physical evocation of an ill-fated expedition that makes northern exploration a metaphor for the writer in his quest to truthfully portray himself.

 

Written and performed by Jonathon Young

Directed by Kevin Kerr

Stage Manager: Jan Hodgson

Sound Design and Composition: Meg Roe, AJ Juliani, Kevin Kerr

Video Design: David Hudgins

Lighting/Set Design: John Webber and Jonathon Young

Set Décor/Props: Rick Holloway

Costumes: Kirsten McGhie

Artistic Conspirator: Kim Collier

 

“a marvelous machine of creativity” – Vancouver Sun