“Rip! (A Winkle in Time)” Hits Its Stride

What a year it has been already! It started in January with the opening of my “Rip! (A Winkle in Time)” at the 12th Avenue Arts Studio in Seattle.

This show, dear to my heart, had a difficult production in Vancouver in 2014. It was on the sixth revision at that point, but there have been several more since, including informed conversations about the theme of indigenous land rights in the show. The version that opened in January was finally everything I had imagined and dreamed “Rip” to be: a knockabout physical theater piece with serious underpinnings. It starts as a romp through the Yukon Gold Rush, but then time travels to a world in which we wrestle with climate change, exploitation of the Arctic, dizzying new technologies and new social mores. It is a celebration of the power of storytelling, of family ties, and of the individual spirit. Inspired by “The 39 Steps,”I wanted to have all the characters played by four performers. Director Arne Zaslove insisted we increase that to five - which is probably just as well, as I doubt that four performers could have survived what I put them through.

Rip was played throughout by the wonderful actor Jon Lutyens. But the four equally wonderful “swing” actors (Gordon Coffey, Angie Bolton, Noel Koran and Iveliz Martel) had their work cut out for them. They played, in no particular order: Gold Rush settlers, a Yukon barmaid in the 1890s, a modern day actress playing a Yukon barmaid, a film director, a Quebecois fur trader, a Russian psychic, a California tycoon, the Man in the Moon, a small town lovesick swain, the ghosts of the doomed Franklin crew, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer - and a Sasquatch! When they came on stage for their curtain call on closing night, I remember thinking with astonishment, “Really? Just these five people did all that?”

Well, not just five. They were ably assisted by a large puppet of a Husky dog named Wolf, created by Dusty Hagerud of Color Sound Lab in Vancouver. Wolf came close to stealing the show when he appeared. And, of course, manipulating this larger-than-life-sized dog was also one of the tasks undertaken by the cast.

What a fulfillment, to see this show become everything it was meant to be! It was so powerfully supported with costumes by Deborah Skorstad (always pitch perfect). And speaking of pitch perfect, music by Theodore Deacon. Judy Wolcott’s lights helped the show move seamlessly through time, place and atmosphere. Norm Spencer’s set made imaginative use of wooden crates, and “quoted” the Canadian painter Lawren Harris in the backdrops.

Thanks to everyone for bringing the show to life so vividly! Eight months later and I’m still on cloud nine.

And there’s more to come in this remarkable year.