The Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver puts out a number of mainstream acts like Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap some years back and Beauty and the Beast this holiday season, but they also showcase a fair amount of lesser known talent as well. Although born abroad, Nick Bantock has been living in BC for some years now, most recently finding his way as a fiction writer. He has produced at least two trilogies of verse, the first of which — Griffin and Sabine — has been adapted for the stage. I had the esteemed opportunity to attend the opening night to this lyrical play at the Granville Island Stage and here are my thoughts.


The premise is fairly straight forward. Griffin is a one-man postcard company living in London, creating some rather fantastic art and paintings. Sabine is an island girl, living in a not-so populated area of the world (I didn’t catch the name, but it’s probably something like the US Virgin Islands or the like, the actual location doesn’t matter all that much). The twist is that Sabine, since she was a young girl, could see every piece of art that Griffin produced as he produced it, despite the fact that he is on the other side of the earth. The image of his painting would unravel right before her in her mind’s eye, and she made it her life mission to find this person and to understand him. Though a few turn of events, they manage to link up and exchange some correspondence in the form of letters and postcards. Through their words, sight unseen, they fall in love.

If you suspend you disbelief for the first act (dubbed The minor, or earthly by Bantock), and buy into the whole one way telepathy thing, you might enjoy a few moments. There are moments of drama, instances of levity, and a little something in between. Some of the exchanges are quite amusing (mostly from Griffin, played by Colin Legge, and not as much from Sabine, played by Lois Anderson, though she does a fairly good job as well).

For example, Griffin describes an experience wherein he walks into an art gallery and is immediately drawn to a particular painting. Upon further inspection, he sees that it depicts your typical knight in shining armor, riding atop a glorious white stallion, except the armor he is wearing “could not withstand a cigarette lighter.” He is shown slaying “toy dragons” to save what appear to be damsels in distress. He appears triumphant and quite proud of himself, though the ladies look indifferent: they didn’t want nor need to be saved. In a moment, the knight realizes that his life’s purpose is absolutely meaningless… then it dawns on Griffin that he is that knight.

It’s not the best play in the world, but it’s not the worst either. But whereas the first act is a little odd, a touch eccentric perhaps, the second act is completely bonkers. It becomes so terribly outrageous, so incredibly outlandish that you are left sitting in your seat, trying to understand what went wrong. It certainly doesn’t help that Nick Bantock dubs this second half The major, or celestial. One moment I saw what seems like an unfolding romance as I delicately straddled the great divide between fantasy and reality. The next, I was thrown into complete and utter disbelief at the sheer absurdity of it all, witnessing a mystical gateway to an alternative realm where a pair of fearful souls attempt to ensnare a dark angel. There’s even mention of something called shadow sight. The smoke machines are, well, running overtime.

The dramatists perhaps said it best when they describe it as “wondrous, yet totally unnerving.” There is something terribly unsettling about this play, and it’s the fact that they are charging people money to watch this. I have not read Bantock’s original books (which are quite highly esteemed), so clearly something was lost in the translation to the stage.

In the end, I found Griffin and Sabine, as a play, to be either: a) so self-absorbed in itself that it could not recognize its utter outrageousness or b) suffering an identity crisis, unsure whether it wants to be focal point of the next Sci-Fi convention with orcs, psychics, and mages out in full force. I cannot with good conscience recommend this play (unless you choose to leave during the 15 minute intermission).

Grade: C