Review of “Ruby Rocket Returns!” and “Fake Ghost Tours”
Reviewed by Peter Takach
Photos by Vancouver Fringe
A rainy Sunday in Vancouver lends itself to noir. As we skulked under the steel girders of Granville Bridge, I found myself ascribing tropes to my fellow theatregoers as we walked past converted warehouses. Over there walks our hero alone, the private eye in her overcoat, lighting a covert cigarette. Here, a pair of femme fatales with their red umbrellas. Walking along by the docks, you can almost see the ghosts of longshoreman past. But what was once a foggy place of corrugated tin factories is now a cobblestoned island of upscale markets, touristy boutiques, and luckily for me, theatre venues, home this month to the Vancouver Fringe Festival, where I took in two comedic shows.
At the Waterfront Theatre, our eponymous detective moseys onstage, grey overcoat, clutching a bottle of hooch and a cigarette, neither leaving her hand for more than a minute. The raspy, mocking voice of Ruby Rocket, portrayed by veteran Portland comedian Stacey Hallal, is spot on, and her opening monologue is peppered with hardboiled clichés–quickly followed by punchlines that immediately contradict them. The self-proclaimed “dick” is here to tell us a story, the case of the missing… “Broach!” an audience member suggests, and the game is afoot.
A femme fatale arrives and tasks Ruby to find her cheetah broach, thus setting off a madcap hour-long improvised journey from bar to brothel to zoo and back again. As Ruby narrates from her spotlight, cops and madams and zookeepers jump into the fray to join her from the sidelines, hilariously portrayed by guest improvisers Briana Rayner, Amy Shostak, and Shawn Norman. The audience howled at every absurd twist of plot, misremembered character name, and slow-motion fight scene and soon, far too soon, Ruby is taking a final drag of her cigarette and demanding a whiskey.
Raynar, Shostak, and Norman brought energy, commitment, and wit to their improvised characters, despite this being the first time they had worked with Hallal. Fedoras off to their quick instincts, and to Kerry O’Donovan, whose live saloon piano score helped set the tone and keep the tempo as the scene unfolded beside him. Another essential part of the mix were the captivating rear projections by Jon Timm, live and constantly-moving black and white footage of the actors superimposed over photos of 1930s Gotham.
As with all long-form improv, much of the magic comes from the gags that develop as the show glides along, from lit cigarettes tucked behind ears to exotic animal trafficking, and watching the cast build a largely cohesive story in front of your eyes. It is Stacey Hallal’s quick wit and commitment to character that hold the show together. The Ruby she has created is an elegant subversion of trope, an effortlessly competent detective who was not allowed to join the police force because of her gender, who charms fellow characters and audience alike with her powers of observation and sardonic flirting with every moll, cop, and zookeeper who crossed her path.
In short, “Ruby Rocket Returns” was a delight to watch this capable cast play around with noir stereotypes onstage, and judging by the applause, I am not the only one eagerly awaiting Ruby’s next return.
Walking through the cobbled alleys of Granville Island, it is not hard to believe that these mean streets and abandoned university buildings have their share of ghastly tales. In “Fake Ghost Tours,” Victoria actors Abdul Aziz and Shawn O’Hara portray two hapless yet eager twin ghost hunters who, scarred by the sheeted, moaning ghost they witnessed in their parents’ bed during childhood, set out to show Vancouverites how haunted their favourite tourist trap really is.
From the tennis courts where George Vancouver played Queen Victoria for the naming rights to city, to the grave of Emily Carr, the so-called “Witch Queen of Canada” whose reign of terror on the West Coast was finally put to rest when the Group of Seven entombed her below her eponymous university, our affable guides were a font of historic anecdotes replete with references to current issues like Indigenous reconciliation and the affordable housing crisis. As the duo shepherded us from haunted site to haunted site, all within a two-block radius “for insurance purposes”, they answered questions from the audience about the supernatural. When asked how you get a ghost to reveal herself to you, Abdul replied, “You have to neg her.”
Abdul and Shawn’s irreverent banter and easy rapport with one another and the audience made this a walk to remember, and laughter came fast and easy in the evening air. Armed with just their warmth and wit, and with a little amplificatory help from their headsets, the “brothers” captured the absurdity of both ghost tours and, at a more sinister level, the importance of thinking critically about the information that is given to you, in a show that harnessed the continuing power of site-specific theatre to surprise and delight.
“Fake Ghost Tours” felt like a fun night out with two waggish friends, and my only disappointment was when we were led back to the initial alley. I can honestly say that I will never walk past False Creek again, particularly “when the air is crisp and the night is pregnant with the full moon,” without thinking of the fierce, man-eating seals that haunt those waters.
Peter Takach is a writer and teacher whose works have surfaced in some of the nation’s finest magazines, literary festivals, and recycling bins. Banished from his hometown of Edmonton for crimes against humanities, he can be found at the University of British Columbia toiling away at his MFA in Creative Writing or perched on driftwood staring out at great Neptune’s ocean.