Old Stock and Urban Tales give new twists to traditional tales

The latest production of the Segal Centre’s 2018-2019 season gives a fresh, interesting perspective to the story of the immigrant/refugee experience to Canada at the turn of the 20^th century, and it’s done in the form of “Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story”, which is playing an extended run at the Segal Centre until December 19.

Part gypsy caravan, part travelling show and part old-time vaudeville show, “Old Stock” was originally produced by the Halifax based 2b Theatre Company, and has played to great success at the Halifax and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals, as well as across Canada and the U.K. Housed in a sturdy metal shipping container, it acts as a tableau to this representative story of what it was like for Jews to flee the anti-Semitism, oppression and violence of their Eastern European homeland during the early 1900s. It focuses on two Jewish refugees: Chaim (Dani Oore) and Chaya (Mary Fay Coady), who first meet as fellow immigrants when they land at Pier 21 in Halifax, and then make their way to Montreal to make a new life for themselves, and the hardships that they have to endure in their new home, whether it be assimilation, prejudice, the struggle to make a living, and raising a family at a time when infant mortality rates were quite high.

This historical narrative is strongly complemented with a live four-piece band (which includes the two actors who portray Chaim and Chaya) that vividly recalls the folk and traditional music of that era. And it is all held together with so much force by Ben Caplan, who portrays The Wanderer, who is its narrator, anchor and in a sense, its conscience. With manic energy, a raging talent as a musician, singer and dancer, and an amazing ability as a storyteller, Caplan is almost like Tevye on steroids, as he guides the audience through the story of Chaim and Chaya with so much flair that he knows how to wear the comedy mask (especially when he rattles off so many offbeat expressions and synonyms for the phrase “sexual intercourse”) and the tragedy mask (when he graphically describes what a pogrom in a Jewish Eastern European village was all about) to such great effect, that The Wanderer plays an integral part in this narrative of this historical tableau.

So whether you’re a first or fifth generation to immigrants to this country, “Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story” is a theatrical experience that you will not only be highly entertained by, but will strongly identify with.

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For the 12^th time, the Centaur Theatre offers the perfect antithesis to all that upbeat Christmas holiday season cheer with “Urban Tales”, which continues until December 15.

“Urban Tales” is a theatrical anthology of six stories about Christmas time (but in a dark, twisted manner) that are told by a solo performer (and accompanied by the guitar strumming courtesy of the multi-talented Harry Standjofski, who is also the creative force behind “Urban Tales”). This year’s theme is “Feathers”, and each tale has that avian material prevalent in each story, whether they play a major or minor role in the development of each narrative.

Standjofski begins the night – and sets the theme and the tone quite well – with the spiritually urban story “Exterminating Angel”; Danette MacKay’s story “The Woman’s Christmas” starts off with an exhibitionist neighbour and ends as a rather empowering story; “Motherless Milk” has Alarey Alsip relate the story of an aspiring ballerina and a rather deadly eggnog concoction; and Laurent Pitre proves that he is a rising star on the Montreal Theatre scene, as he performs two stories: “A Christmas Caroler”, a terrific piece of dark comedy about a high strung young man and a persistent, homeless man-turned-Christmas caroler, and “Douai”, a Canadian Armed Forces veteran’s Christmas story told after he is killed in Kandahar. And “Urban Tales” is wonderfully capped off with Standjofski’s manic story of a man and his dysfunctional family called “seven last words’.

And finally, a note about Standjofski’s talent as a guitar player, and his ability to create such layered musical pieces with his stringed instrument and his network of pedals that so effectively creates the tone for each story. One day, he should consider just doing a solo, non-theatrical show that would showcase his ability with the guitar and what wonders he can do with it.

So if you like to celebrate the holiday season with a dark twist to it, make “Urban Tales” part of your Christmas list … and it doesn’t matter at all of you’re naughty or nice!

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To purchase tickets for “Old Stock”, go to www.segalcentre.org. To purchase tickets for “Urban Tales”, go to www.centaurtheatre.com.