SEE Magazine
Copyright © 1998. All Rights Reserved.
COVER STORY
BY ADRIAN LACKEYPREVIEW
Dreamland Saturday Nights
by David Belke
Shadow Theatre
The New Varscona Theatre
10329-83 Ave.
Jan. 31 - Feb. 15David Belke was at The Bagel Tree nursing a Nanaimo bar, awaiting my late arrival. The day before, he had written a play in three hours - it copped the "Curling d'or" at 4 Play, the annual fund-raiser for Catalyst Theatre. Belke, one of Edmonton's most prolific playwrights, was on the cusp of the opening for his new play Dreamland Saturday Nights. The world may not be his oyster, but it's not the lowest form of gastropod either.
With his record (he has won two Sterling awards from four nominations, a "Hurling" and now a "Curling" from Catalyst and is a favorite of local theatre), Belke has many fans and friends. But his new play was inspired, in part, by finding himself alone.
"It's a little romantic comedy set against the backdrop of classic, Hollywood movies," Belke said of Dreamland. "Two lonely people accidentally meet at an oldtime repertory cinema when the film Double Indemnity breaks. Then it follows the growth of their relationship over a series of Saturday nights as they come together to see old movies."
In a very big way, Dreamland Saturday Nights is Belke's love letter to the cinema. It's a favorite subject matter brought to the stage.
"Well, one of the nice things about being a playwright is that you get to share your enthusiasms with the world. In my case I've had a chance to share my fondness for Shakespeare (The Maltese Bodkin) and mysteries (The Reluctant Resurrection of Sherlock Holmes), as well as the theatre (Another Two Hander Or Two).
"The play was inspired when I went by myself to the Paramount to see a movie," recounted Belke. Naturally, when you go to a movie, or a play, you want to enjoy it with someone you know. Belke scanned the audience for a flash of recognition. There was none - he sat alone.
"That started the connecting of thoughts of meeting a stranger at a movie and then meeting that stranger over a series of nights at a movie theatre."
The play, he explains, "is also about the way movies color our perceptions. The movies in Dreamland provide a direct influence. Characters from these movies actually appear in the play."
Patrick Howarth plays the projectionist, but he also plays Don Corleone, Jack Nicholson, Fred Astaire, Humphry Bogart and a host of other actors and characters. Kerry Ann Doherty not only plays the candy counter girl, she also plays Norma Desmond and Bette Davis.
The love interests in Dreamland are provided by Amy Berger (Cocktails at Pam's) and Matt Baram (Reefer Madness: The Musical). Amy's character - Dorothy Gayle Bass - connects with movies on a very emotional, very personal level. For her they're escape, they're color, they're excitement, they're adventure. They are all these things that she desperately needs and wants in her life, but they aren't being supplied anywhere else. Whereas Matt Baram's character, Charlie Foster (an allusion to Citizen Kane), comes from a different angle: he loves movies, but they're an intellectual exercise. He analyses movies; he breaks them down. Dorothy sees color and romance while Charlie sees lighting, direction and camera angles.
"They both share a love for the movies, but they come to it from two completely different angles." Ego meets id, if you will.
And what love letter to the cinema would be complete without a cameo by filmdom's most recognizeable auteur? Belke couldn't resist it.
"Charlie has the candy counter girl cornered and goes on and on about Vertigo, and Hitchcock does a walkby. You can't have a Hitchcock scene and not have him show up."
A love for movies is one of the things Belke shares with his Shadow Theatre colleague and Dreamland director John Hudson. As the owner/manager of The Alternative Video Spot, Hudson has a movie collection any self-respecting fan of cinema would give his liver up to have (it should also be noted that Belke's Fringe hit April in Peril was inspired after watching Irving Pichel's movie O.S.S. on late-night CBC).
Belke's love and knowledge of film is also manifested in the weekly improvised soap opera Die-Nasty. Every Monday night he portrays Sonny O'Shea, the amiable, hard drinking, gossip-mongering director of photography at the fictional depression-era Sibling Brother Studios (which prides itself in employing not a single art director). It is here Belke gets to display his innate gift to make up side-splitting songs on the spot, including odes to his darkroom ("It's neat and clean and dark/Where a man can really get in touch with himself").
Sonny is the most experienced character at the studio, Belke says of his alter ego. "Here's a 65-year-old man in the 1930s, who's been working as a camera man since the very beginning of film. He's worked for all the pioneers of film: D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. But, his real function in Die-Nasty is that he's the advice-giver. He's the experienced old granddaddy. He supplies everything and he's the only one who really knows what's going on with everything there."
Belke turned pensive for a moment. "He's also a sad figure in many ways too. He's lonely, he's divorced, he has a daughter he hasn't seen in decades who he writes and sends half his paycheque to every week. He has a staff Christmas party that only has one guest showing up and even the guest sneaks out the second Sonny's back is turned. But he's very caring too. He'll protect people, he supplies a lot of needs for the other characters."
On those Monday nights at the New Varscona, Belke trades improv chops with fellow film buff Dana Andersen (Andersen's portrayal of the present day Oscar Sibling is based on Samuel Fuller, the veteran Hollywood director who died late last year).
Along with acting and writing in his résumé, another of Belke's callings is that of designer (he had to turn down two lucrative designing gigs to work on Dreamland), and he has worked as a production designer for a short film. But it was a labor of love, worth the sacrifices. Film, Belke observes, is the stuff of life. Few people could summarize our collective relationship with cinema as well as Belke.
"It's just basically lights and shadows projected on the screen, but cinema can transport you to places that never existed. They make you feel and identify with people who were never born. And yet it is just as tangible as a life experience for the audience. When you really think about it, cinema is the closest thing we have to sorcery in the 20th century."
And Belke's as close as we get to a sorcerer. If you love theatre and film, you're in for a real treat with Dreamland Saturday Nights. The classic Hollywood movies referred to and quoted in the play include: Casablanca, Citizen Kane, All About Eve, The Scarlet Empress, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, The Wizard of Oz, How to Marry a Millionaire, Field of Dreams, It Happened One Night, Sunset Blvd., Top Hat, The Gay Divorcee, Gone With the Wind, Some Like It Hot, Double Indemnity, The Third Man, Five Easy Pieces, The Godfather, Vertigo and The Empire Strikes Back.
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