Art After Dark tonight

Art After Dark from 7-10 p.m. tonight will be a wonderful way to add the splash of local artists to that of our visiting (writer) artists. Daniel Hughes and Margaret Hughes at Frameworks is near the Grand's photo exhibition and particularly central. Also Studio 22 across from the Market Square.

It's Culture Days, remember. Time to walk the walk and show culture is actually fun.

Art After Dark, WritersFest, Wood and Fuel!

The moon is glowing full, and so is the week (and month) ahead. After taking a break all summer, time to get serious about artshopping.

Although it's a great week ahead, I've one big complaint: I wish Downtown Kingston had moved its wonderful Art After Dark, because I think it will suffer, not benefit from, the competition of the WritersFest events. I really want to see Bob Blenderman's work at Studio 22, and the Water for Life photographs, taken in Africa, at the Grand Theatre -- but then will have to dash off to the actor Nicky Guardini doing a staged reading of Carolyn Smart's very neat women's monologues, "Hooked." (Just reading that inspired our family to read Carson McCullers this summer...she's truly captured some interior mindscapes.) But if you're not seeing a WritersFest event on THursday, give the Art After Dark a shot. It's free and wonderful.

Merilyn Simonds has created a phenomenal Writersfest, but I'm "only" going to the evening events. In addition to Hooked, we're seeing the opening night Paul Quarrington piece and Joyce Carol Oates and "the poets" (especially Jill Battson) on Friday night's Vox Performa.

Saturday, I think I'll head off to Tamworth to check out a sale at the beautiful Stinson Wood Studios...and Bon Eco Design followed by the opening of Homelands at Modern Fuel (then probably popping over to the WritersFest Saturday Night Speakeasy, which was a lot of fun last year, as poets/writers improvised to Jonathan Stewart and friends.

Next week it quiets down a bit, (so why isn't THAT Art After Dark week?) which is a good time to check out Night at the Firehall Theatre. It wasn't my favourite script of all time, but the depiction of an Inuit community is very powerful, and the young woman in the lead is amazing.

We actually booked a hotel to go and see Nuit Blanche in Toronto Oct. 2 - a good time to also catch the wild ceramicist Shary Boyle at the AGO.

It's also time to get the Grand Theatre "alternate theatre' Package at the Baby Grand, which offers options for all three Theatre Kingston shows (the Attic and the Pearls and Three Fine Girls starts their season in November (Norman 4D, about Norman McLaren kicks off the Grand's Theatre series on Oct. 20.) www.kingstongrand.ca

That's it for spectator sports right now. Omigosh, Micky Rooney is in town today. Life is so strange.

Rainy knight in Kingston

This summer I've actually been trying to learn to just enjoy things. Sure, I'm a bit overdue, but you have to start somewhere and I'm starting with things like the garden, sitting in the sunshine, biking, you know - NORMAL things. We're still bouncing around trying to sample the arty stuff, but since we can't get out of town much (with my husband's new Shakespeare-influenced play Trouble on Dibble Street opening in Prescott), we pretty well had to keep ourselves busy here. Would it be enough? At first, I didn't think so.

In June, I had three wonderful experiences at the Thousand Islands Playhouse (Blood Brothers and Another Home Invasion - still on - and a Monday Night Series offering, Chic Gamine . Locally, I was a little lukewarm about some of our other ent choices (including the Buskerfest, which just doesn't do it for me).

So I just buried my head in taking a painting class and doing some work UNTIL I scored a ticket for Elton John's K-Rock Centre concert at the last minute! Now, I was never much of a rocker, but how can Sir EJ's music not be inside you -if you're somewhere between 30 and 60? I had to go alone, and I'll admit my first catty thought was "This is one place where I don't have to be sheepish about my overdue haircut or wardrobe" --since looking good isn't much part of what happens at K-Rock concerts. And when it started I thought "maybe I just don't have this aging rock and roll fan gene."

But Sir Elton really, really "saved my life tonight." The show was a bit late starting because all the drenched spectators took longer to get into the building, but once it started, he didn't let up. His fingers rolled over those keys, the songs kept coming and coming, and in spite of looking a bit like a cuddly granny...that voice still comes from the core.

You couldn't get a stronger reminder about the power of really loving what you do, continuing to go for it in a huge way, and the utter payoff of using your talents generously and playfully. The concert experience wasn't just about nostalgia - he lit the house on fire for more than 2 hours without a break. I admit the oldies of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Daniel and Rocket Man all made me cry, but rockin' out with Crocodile Rock , The Bitch is Back, and Bennie and the Jets was actually....FUN. I had FUN!!! With thousands of people!!! With bad hair and so-so clothes!!! Go figure. I don't know where Sir Elton flies to now on his private jet - but he leaves behind a lot of very happy people. Right here in little old Kingston! And they're not all wearing funny boas.

Summer isn't such a bad thing. Rain or shine.

summer is not a silly season

We're trying to stay abreast of all the good stuff, and falling a bit behind. This past week we did get to Drama and Desire at the AGO where hub ran into a former student, Alex Dault, who gets to "schmact" to pep up the interesting exhibit of art work based on a few centuries of theatre!

Since we had only one day in, had to pass on Luminato - except for the wonderful strangeco designed inflatable sculptures in Queen's Park.

Back home wasn't bad, however, as I had another wander through Don Maynard's Franken Forest at the Agnes Etherington, art and nature combined in the coolest of ways...then popped in to hear CR Avery as part of Skeleton Park Music Festival at the Mansion. Now HE was incredible, doing beat boxing great stuff (don't you hate, don't you hate, don't you hate it when...) as well as simple banjo pickin. Then we thought "hey, try a Blue Canoe show if you can't get out in a real canoe." So we went to Tick, Tick, Boom at the Baby Grand.

Okay, great aspirations, but theatre is already SOOOOOOOOOOO complex, I don't know why students think "all we have to do is pull some great people together with an interesting show and rent a space." Doesn't help that our local reviewer is really easily impressed (by some things.) Sorry - main quibble - the lead character is supposed to be an angst filled musical theatre writer (written by and based on the late Jonathan Larson, of RENT fame). The young man playing him was not only 10 years too young, but was not somehow directed to fill his body with the passion that the role absolutely requires. And the staging was really limited, partially by deciding to do it as corridor staging (both sides). Two lovely female stars, however - Alysa King and Brianna Roberts. As a musical, an early musical of Larson's, it is weak and dated --as a sociological document (since he died on the first preview night of RENT) it's rather interesting. Admittedly, I've never been a fan of RENT, but he was certainly a huge force in theatre.

BUT I'm not, I'm not, I'm not going to any more student based shows unless someone in the family is associated with them. People from professional training schools aren't allowed to stage productions until they're finished...for good reason. You get smug, because your pals rave -- Hard work and dedication alone don't guarantee good products. And it's not "all about you!"

Now, off to the Thousand Islands Playhouse, where Blood Brothers (not my favourite show, either, but I live in hope...) apparently has a dynamite cast.

summer arts season

On one level, arts in Kingston are a bit quiet at the moment (and we missed most of May, since we went away, getting inspired in France) - but the studio tours were lovely (particularly Joanna Winik's home, with all the moody but quizzical unframed works filling her whole house) and Art After Dark gave a second chance to see the really strong abstracts at Wellington Street Art Gallery and the playfully presented show at Modern Fuel. Also love the Don Maynard Franken Forest installation at The Agnes (which I will continue to call it, in my private time) - it's one of those installations which is better to visit on a non-opening night, because you can really feel that you're in a solitary forest, or watching a flock of birds pass by. On the other hand, I'm afraid the Pride Fest parade was FAR more artful than their art exhibition at the Artel. Signage by Scott Wilson was riddled with typos, and I'm SURE there's far higher quality locally gay-created art than those pieces represented. Very disappointed. Am, however, looking forward to Trevor Waurechen's two openings (a loud one and a quiet one) this week at the Artel. His whimsical work sometimes verges on cartoony --but has quite a nice edge.

Theatrically - the Thousand Islands Playhouse is getting going in Gan (don't go over without checking out the English Pub that opened on the main street. Good food. Good atmo) 39 Steps wasn't my cuppa...but hear that the upcoming Blood Brothers (musical) cast is primo. Folks there are saddened (rightfully) with this week's passing of Dennis Horn, the designer who added so much brilliance to their productions over the years. I'm personally most looking forward to the Firehall's Another Home Invasion (by the West Coast's brilliant Joan McLeod) particularly since I can't seem to get to Toronto for stuff these days.

Am choosing the opening of Sir John A Back From The Dead Concert Tour in Kingston June 23rd over the Firehall opening night, just because these guys have gone at the whole thing with such gusto, and a real "mentoring mix" between Jim Garrard and Layne Coleman and the whole young cast and crew they've involved.

(We will, however be popping out of town to 4th Line Theatre and GCTC in Ottawa yet this month, then Montreal's Centaur Theatre for the hilarious sequel to Mom's The Word in July. )Kingston's Wellington Street Theatre also has a bunch of plays on...but the lack of consistency in quality experiences there is off-putting. Rather tempted to see the Blue Canoe piece about Jonathan Larsen, which has just opened.

But the fact that the Skeleton Park Music Fest is about to start this week is fabulous. Gertrudes and Rueben de Groot Weds at Syd. U. Church (free)--Ken Whiteley at Skeleton Park on the weekend, CJ Avery at the Mansion. Whoopeee. And Girls Nite Out at Ben's tonight sounds absolutely fabulous.

Year of Magical Thinking - an honest portrait of a unique mind

Whenever tragedy suddenly hits anyone - especially multiple tragedies - the first thing you wonder is "how will they ever get through it?" Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, impeccably performed for Theatre Kingston by Artistic Director Kim Renders, gives us one very famous, admittedly privileged, and talented woman's response to just such a situation. Not only did writer Didion's longtime life and creative partner suddenly die - but it was at a time when their only child was in a coma, with more health challenges ahead.

Far from being a formulatic, chest-thumping grief purge, the detailed script of The Year of Magical Thinking is a compellingly honest look into the very articulate, not always logical or admirable, but utterly authentic coping strategies that Didion employed to cope with her famous husband's death and her daughter's repeated hospitalizations. It was Magical Thinking - something she wasn't terribly proud of, but which sustained her, all the same. And which she shares with us.

What Didion selects to tell us about the night her husband died - and the hope-fraught time thereafter- is probably closer to an actual survivor's experience than anything you'll ever see on television -or that most people will share with you. Grief, like God, is in the details. Wanting to keep the shoes in the closet. The tone of someone's voice. The way you avoid anything that will send you deeper - until you're ready.

This show, and Render's performance are both unique and thought-provoking. While hearing Didion tell how she "did it" - you're also amazed at how Renders does it - all 90 minutes,without ever dipping into cliche or melodrama. They are telling us a story. A story about the mind. A story about life.

It is also useful information. Don't employ magical thinking to convince yourself that it isn't. As Didion says "when it happens to you - and it will" - it will be good to know that the things you think, and the things you feel do not have to be Hallmark card/grief therapy platitudes. Your own interior resources can actually get you through.

Sit, and listen. It's important information.

Lin Bennett

Gordon Lightfoot in concert- pass my cane!

Carefree Highway, one of the first songs in Gordon Lightfoot’s Kingston K-Rock Centre concert this weekend, talked about picking up pieces of a dream and wondering about how the old folks are. He certainly didn’t have to look too far, if he really wanted to know. The sea of white hairs and shining bald pates (including those of his band) was looking complacent, bored, and maybe quietly hoping for a brief reconnection with their pasts – a past where people called them “beautiful” and said they would “never stray” and the future was still ahead. The cold spotlight of a Sunday night in Kingston was telling everyone something else, however.

Now, Mr. Lightfoot indeed looked pretty good for 72 – somewhere between lanky and frail - carrying his long gray hair well and striding out in cowboy boots with heels (not orthotic runners)! But his raspy voice had definitely seen the “better days” of his Carefree Highway years –and the passion was only there in the lyrics, certainly not resurrected on stage. He didn’t even seem to try.

Okay, maybe he was protecting his voice. Maybe all his health issues over the years meant this was as good as we could expect… and, for someone who had been pronounced dead by gossip earlier in the year, he was certainly damned healthy. Still, “not dead yet” is just not a good enough reason for a concert.

“See him while he’s alive”…might imply a tribute, of sorts, and I wholeheartedly believe it’s important a figure such as Gordon Lightfoot experiences our respect now (rather than watching us from a cloud after he’s gone). Nonetheless, I couldn’t help compare the concert to the one given by Leonard Cohen, who was just a tad older when he played here at K-Rock Centre last year. Even at 3 times the ticket price, that was five times the show.

We all have icons whom we’ll forgive for almost anything. I know there are a lot of others who felt exactly the opposite about the concert: that hearing the lyrics from Lightfoot himself was enough, more than enough, to send them into raptures. That was exactly the same way I felt about the Bob Dylan concert that was publicly reviled by so many a few years ago. And yes, I teared up for Early Morning Rain. And smiled at Rainy Day People. And nodded along with Sundown. And was glad that the K-Rock sound was actually so good this time we could (mostly) understand him quite well.

But mostly, it just made me sad. I’d rather have seen him on TV.