The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 43

Mar. 6, 1974 43 4 cinematic triumph for director Claude Jutra, for star Genevieve Buod, for Canadian film-making -and worth every penny of its $1 million cost ENTERTAINMENT 1 1' Kamouraska: double edged masterpiece 3 the doctor who loves Elizabeth until they get rid of her husband, is a sensitive intellectual player who allows his emotions to show but always with gentlemanly control. Director Jutra's film is a thing of beauty, thanks to the camerawork of Michel Brault, undoubtedly one of the greats. His composition and lighting, his eye for detail and atmosphere, make almost every frame of the picture one that could be blown up and hung in an art gallery among the Breughels and Rembrandts. The film is filled with character studies contributed by performers hand-picked by director Jutra and then led into their various roles that round out the story and stifling setting for this look at 19th century Canadian romanticism.

Camille Bernard as old Mme. Tassy is a perfect matriarch. Suzie Baillargeon, who has never acted before, is a sensuous domestic and accomplice in the her-, oine's illicit love affair. Francois Barbeau and Gabriel Cantant researched and executed costumes and sets to accentuate the period without interfering with the personal elements of, the action. And Maurice Le Roux's music is discreetly used.

When Jutra finished shooting, he had three hours and 40 minutes of film to exhibit. He cut that by 20 minutes and then reduced it still further to 2 hours. As it is now, it is two hours long, thanks to Jutra's wise decision to turn it over to editor Renee Lichtig and her experienced, new-to-the-film eye. Still, Kamouraska is a group effort, a masterful film out of Canada's literary past that will go down in this country's film history as a major accomplishment. films, when done well, can stand up against all competition.

Kamouraska was written by a woman, Anne Hebert, who tells a classic love story from a woman's viewpoint. Its heroine, Elizabeth, is a tragic victim of a narrow-minded Victorian age in Quebec when love was incidental and marriage was to last a lifetime, even when an intolerable relationship. When the story begins, she is a worn-out, middle-aged wife waiting for her second husband to die. In flashbacks, Jutra reveals the past a young girl's marriage to a rapacious, slow-witted, hard-drinking Antoine Tassy, a man she hates; her love affair with a kind, considerate but possessive American doctor; the murder of her oafish husband, prison and finally another loveless marriage. What makes this familiar theme exciting and even suspenseful, with a freshness not initially part of the Anne.

Hebert-Claude Jutra screenplay, is an incredibly versatile performance by Genevieve Bujold as Elizabeth, the woman born too soon, a free-spirited individual who refuses to be subjected to society's restrictive moral code or to the demands of either her husband or lover. Mile. Bujold displays unexpected abilities as a tragedienne, and she makes great use of her physical qualities to bolster the character she portrays so admirably. Her angelic face and her soft voice, along with her fragile femininity, are deceptive camouflage for the passionate and resolute determination that forces her to free herself from the life that has been inflicted on her. Her misery in marriage and the shattered dreams of an ideal love are emphasized all the more by the fact that By LES WEDMAN From now on, when talk gets around to Canadian films, it has to include Claude Jutra's Kamouraska, one of the finest yet made in this country, and certainly unsurpassed in its beauty and in-, tricate dramatic construction.

Jutra, whose talents became recognized in English Canada through his Mon Oncle Antoine, with its intimate feeling for contemporary life in rural Quebec, this time has created a double-edged work of cinematic art one that is authentically Quebecois and yet is truly international. Kamouraska, a Franco-Canadian co-production, is a lavish drama by any standards, and an exceptional one based on past Canadian efforts. It cost close to $1 million and is worth every penny, all of it up there on the screen to overwhelm even those who some time ago shed their skepticism over the entertainment value of Canada's films. In French, with English subtitles, Kamouraska is breaking house records for attendance at The Dunbar Theatre, which in itself is proof that Canadian SHOWTIMES CLUBS 8, 10, midnight, Jehry Lee Miller. Bayshore Inn.

9, 11, onny Terry and Brownie McGhee. The Egress. 9:30, Guys and Dolls. Sky Stage. 9:30.

midnight, The David Sterling Show. Oil Can Harry's. 10, midnight, John Lee Hooker. Kego Club. STAGE 8, Fathers Sons, Cousin Pether-ick the Will and Giulietta.

City Stage. 8, Under Milk Wood. Langara College. 8:30, Battering Ram. Arts Club Theatre.

8:30, Dracula II. Vancouver East Cultural Centre. 8:30, Rattle of a Simple Man. York Theatre. MUSIC 8:30, Festival Singers of Canada.

Queen Elizabeth Theatre. THURSDAY NOON STAGE 12:15, 1:15, Fathers Sons and Cousin Petherick the Will. cerns a childhood memory triggered by the perfume of crushed flowers. The older Davey Bryant, sitting among wild-flowers on a beach in British Columbia, recalls the scent of crushed primrose stems and this memory carries him back to his grandmother's funeral years before in Cornwall where, as a boy of 11, he experienced a moment of illumination regarding the relationship between fathers and sons. It is a simple, beautifully balanced piece that combines vivid reality with the more hazy and poetic images of memory.

Like Cousin Petherick and the Will, Fathers and Sons is laced with humor as well as emotion, and the various Cornish Janacek: seemingly infallible finesse si MONODRAMATIST WATMOUGH Watmough: By CHRISTOPHER DAFOE Sun Drama Critic City Stage, the small, cosy theatre on Howe Street, provides an admirable setting for the intimate and absorbing monodramas of David Watmough. The lunch-hour theatre company seeking a change of pace after the long run of its enormously popular mini-musical, Canterbury Tales launched a five-day series of Watmough recitals at noon Tuesday. The Watmough engagement began with two monodramas, Cousin Petherick and the Will, which was performed at the Vancouver Art Gallery earlier this season, and a new work, Fathers and Sons. Watmough, who frequently has to perform under trying circumstances in school halls and large, echoing theatres, seems far more at ease in the comfortable intimacy provided by City Stage. He is in close contact with his audience and he assumes the role of story-teller with ease.

He has not seen fit to scale down his B- A 7.1 Ray Allan Photo a torrent of memories compelling memories of a ACTRESS BUJOLD passion and resolution the men with whom she is involved are such opposites. Her husband is robustly and manfully played by French actor Philippe Leotard, who puts across all the undesirable gross elements of his role instinctively. Richard Jordan, as play, some sort of perfect confidence of motion seems to go into immediate effect. Relaxing under the assurance of a seemingly infallible finesse, we hang on every detail and smile at the collapse of assumed improbabilities. Like any good quartet, the Janacek comprising violinists Bohumil Smejkal and Adolf Sykora, violist Jire Kratochvil and cellist Karel Krafka-have their own character, and the program they chose was ideally apt to their broad, cordial romanticism.

They played Dvorak's Quartet in A-flat, Op. 105, Janacek's Quartet No. 2 and Haydn's Quartet in Minor, Op. 76, No. 2.

personally, was happy to hear the commonly assumed salon aspect of Haydn underplayed in favor of ebullienceto witness every opportunity taken to make this late work glow with its proper character and body. The first movement, with its nuggets of concentrated thought, was given a stong and undeviating exposition, and sculpted fully in the round with Smejkal's violin arcing sweet, fleet and stylish over a pizzicato accompaniment; the famous "witches' minuet" darkly menacing in barrelling canon between upper and lower strings; and a peasant dance finale with blood in its veins. The Dvorak quartet, begun in America where the composer took up residence for three years, and finished in Czechoslovakia, overflows with the joy he took early years of Famous Artists, the company that Hugh and Holly formed, there were many dry periods. They were just about at the end of their tether five years later. Hurok was touring the Sadler's Wells ballet company with Margot Fonteyn.

It wasn't even scheduled to come this way. Hugh and Holly begged Hurok for the company because it was almost certain to make enough money so they'd break even on the year. The Hurok organization said there was no way. But Hurok himself interceded. And that's why the company cancelled a week in Denver and played in Vancouver at the Orpheum instead.

Pickett found out later that Hurok personally reimbursed the Denver promoter for his out-of-pocket advance expenses. It wasn't for a buck, but because those people out in Vancouver had come through when he needed them, and he always remembered. And in recent years, when Hurok was touring such attractions as the Bolshoi, they always turned up in Vancouver, even though it would have been far more profitable to play an extra week in Philly. UP 'N ITEM Aid. Bill Gibson and architect Ned Pratt are In Montreal today attempting to sell Drum-niond Birks on considering Paul Merrick's plan to save the existing exterior of the Birks Building while still providing the space that the developers seem to require to do their thing with an office tower and theatres.

The key clement Is a scries of "skyways" rather than the underground tunnels that are already under construction to link the proposed development to Pacific Centre and The Bay The Toronto Workshop pro in his return home; it abounds in moods, rhythmic volatility and melody. The Janacek members were obviously in possession of an understanding of the thoughts that must have run through Dvorak's mind in this celebrated Apart from being a model of organiza-; tion, with due sensitivity to problems of voicing and balance, their playing was: derived from an affectionate conception, taking on a gorgeousness in the lento's long flow of melody. In the scherzo, the most popular movement, they were able to create swift changes of color from bright primaries to subtle mezzotints. And what could be more natural for! the Janacek Quartet to play than a' Janacek quartet? Sub-titled Intimate Pages, the second quartet is very much a diaristic disclosure by an aged Jana-' cek in his last year, looking longingly at; his past youth and lovingly at the work's' very inspiration a young and beautiful woman by the name of Kamila Stoss-lova, who had been Janacek's close friend during the last decade of his life. The Janacek Quartet's interpretation of this fine work, which cuts so close to the core of human feeling, is commonly considered the definitive one, and I could hardly argue with that.

Through its swirl of abrupt changes of tempo mood and dynamics from the breakneck dances to the evocations of lush Czech forests and peasant fiddlers to the timeless meditations that hover and fade the Janacek players' revelation was of a completeness that could hardly have been bettered. duction of a play based on former Sunman Barry Broadl'oot's best-selling book, Ten Lost Years, the story of the Canadian Depression, has been so well accepted that it's been held over for another month Bet your money that it won't be more than a week or so before UBC engineers pick up on the current college craze of streaking in the mass Ewi (Groovy) Mayer might be considered effete because he makes his living snapping pictures with a little camera, but when he says, "Look at the birdie," you'd better! For the umpteenth year he won the Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous flour-packing contest, hefting 800 pounds before his competition dropped by the wayside. But that's not the item. Former femme sprint star Irene Pietrowski, who was in Whitchorsc for the celebration, decided to try her strength and managed to carry 500 pounds Fifteen years ago, Maurice Aguilar was a waiter in his native Lerida, Spain. Then he left for England, and four years ago arrived in Canada.

He's now the manager of the Dev Seafood House. The other night, a tall blonde man walked in to ask for a job. After they talked for a few minutes, the stranger blurted out, "I guess you don't remember me but I'm the one they called Lucky." Maurice suddenly remembered that "Lucky" was Luis Valencia, who'd been his bus boy back in Lerida. He'd been working in Toronto and S.F. and thought he'd try for a job In Vancouver.

And that's our small world item for today. WASSERMANIA This week's definition of a loser is the guy who phones the crisis centre and gets put on "hold." By LLOYD DYKK It's not for nothing that the Janacek Quartet exist as one of the world's more anticipated chamber groups, as has been proven here twice in the past and again Tuesday night at the Queen Elizabeth Playhouse when they performed for Friends of Chamber Music. Their "seductiveness of tone, juiciness of stroke, and warm, well-agreed musicianship have secured them an enviable place in a small elite. Guarantees are as rare in music as in anything else, but when this Czech ensemble sits down to Cornishman characters that Watmough summons up for our entertainment and instruction are all splendidly realized. Watmough's Vancouver performances, have been infrequent in the past and his appearance at City Stage, which is his first extended series of performances in a local theatre, should serve to introduce his special and exceedingly attractive style of one-man theatre to the larger audience that he deserves.

Fathers and Sons and Cousin Petherick and the Will can be seen at City Stage again on Thursday at 12:15 and 1:15. Another monodrama, Giulietta, will be presented at the lunch hour today and Friday. All three pieces will be performed evenings at 8 until Saturday. well and a part-time publicist named Hugh Pickett presiding over the wreckage. In the course of several long-distance phone calls between Vancouver and New York, Hurok's people suggested forgetting the whole thing and bypassing the Vancouver dates.

Pickett pointed out that there was no money to pay the artists or to refund the tickets that had been sold. He suggested that Hurok should run the season himself so that Vancouver wouldn't become a permanent Death Valley for touring artists. Hurok responded with the suggestion that Holly and Hugh should set up an agency and handle the concerts. They replied that they didn't have enough money to even begin. Hurok's man returned to New York for the final consultations.

He apparently gave Hurok a glowing report on the Vancouver pair. A few days later, they received Hurok's personal cheque for $5,000 'as a bankroll, along with a note that they were not to concern themselves about paying it back. He never ever asked for the money, but Hugh and Holly were able to get through the season, honor all the tickets that had been sold earlier, pay the artists and have enough left over at the end of the year to repay Hurok's "loan." That was the beginning of a relationship that continued until Hurok's death. Vancouver never missed a major Hurok presentation. In the 3 WASSERMAN Ccsallboard: choisr climax performance to suit the size of the hall the monodramas, after all, do not call for a conversational delivery and his emphatic, richly dramatic readings seem to suit the requirements of the City Stage space admirably.

The close proximity of audience to performer makes it possible to absorb more fully the previously perplexing torrent of Cornish dialect that bubbles through -Watmough's vivid memory-pieces. At a distance you get the flavor of Cornish speech; at close quarters you get all the sense as well. Both Cousin Petherick and the Will and Fathers and Sons carry us back to Davey Bryant's roots in his native Cornwall. Watmough has indicated that his monodramas are not totally autobiographical and that Davey Bryant is not, in every respect, his own younger self, but the material is so vividly written and the emotion it contains is so powerful and convincing that one listens and is certain that time past has been reconstructed in every detail. Fathers and Sons, the new work, con The English Eay Sketch Club will present a collection of paintings at the Lougheed Mall from March 7 to 9.

Vagabond Players will present the comedy, The Death and Life of Sneaky Fitch, at Vagabond Playhouse, Queen's Park, New Westminster, at 8:30 p.m. March 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, and 16. Dr. Peter Coldmark, creator of the long playing record and the first practical color television process and a former president of CBS Laboratories, will lecture on the New Rural Society at the Simon Fraser University theatre at 12:30 p.m. March and renowned British journalist and author Malcolm Muggeridge will present An Encounter With Malcolm Muggeridge a discussion of issues confronting our society at the Simon Fraser University theatre at 12:30 p.m.

March 11. West Vancouver Little Theatre Guild will present The Playroom by Mary Drayton, at the West Vancouver Recreation Centre, 2158 Fulton, at 8 p.m. March 7, 8 and 9. Paul Porter directs. Highland dancers and pipers, a Scottish and Gaelic singing choir and instrumentalists will be featured at the Scot-, tish Auditorium, 1805 West Twelfth, at 8 p.m.

March 12, BACKGROUND SOUND Although Sol Hurok hadn't been in Vancouver since 1920, when he passed through town en route back from Japan with Pavlova, he played a direct, first-hand role in the city's en- tertainment scene for the past 25 years. THE impresario, who died in New York of a heart attack after lunching with Segovia, personally bankrolled Famous Artists, the local concert agency. The story of how the world's greatest modern-day impresario became personally involved in the nickels-and-dimes Vancouver operation is one of those great now-it-can-be-told show business stories. Back in 1950, Gordon Hilker was Mr. Show Business in Vancouver.

He booked the major concert artists; ran Theatre Under the Stars for the park board, and produced his own shows. I won't bore you with all the sad details, but Gordon's mini-empire collapsed in a heap one day and the creditors grabbed what cash was available. His concert booking agency had already been selling tickets for the upcoming winter season. The principal attractions, including Marian Anderson and Artur Rubcnstcln, came out of the Hurok office. He despatched a man from New York to see if anything could be salvaged.

Hurok's man found a secretary named Holly Max By MAX WYMAN The Festival Singers of Canada climax a busy two-day visit to Vancouver tonight with a full-scale concert at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. The choir which "easily belongs to the best international teams in existence," according to a London critic is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary-Tuesday, it gave a free noon-hour concert at Simon Frascr University, and participated in choral workshops at SFU and with the Vancouver Bach Choir at the Community Music School. Vancouver audiences will remember the chorus' 1971 Vancouver appearance also at Simon Frascr University and the striking demonstration of choral excellence that was given then. Since that time, they have made a 15-city European tour that has established the 38-member ensemble as one of the world's finest. Founded In 1954 by Elmer Iscler and three young singers with the idea of creating a permanent small choir for use oy the CI3C the Festival Singers of Canada are now the professional core of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.

Iscler remains the group's permanent conductor and music director, and has earned personal honors that have included a nomination for a Grammy award In 1963..