WHAT YOU WANT
The reviews are coming in and What You Want is a hit. Kathleen Oliver writing in the Georgia Straight said the following:
Ever wonder what goes on inside a playwright’s mind as he crafts his work for the stage? Vancouver’s Andrew Templeton puts his process front and centre in What You Want: his four actors (Russell Bennett, Gillian Bennett, Sean Tyson, and Rachel Aberle) play two fictional couples, but interspersed with their story are snippets in which he uses them as mouthpieces for his own candid and often playful reflections on the writing. The fictional world is full of fresh, often risqué, comedy about dating and sex, but Templeton, who also directed, has equal fun with his metatheatricality, getting the actors entangled in arguments over what’s scripted and what’s not, and whether they are embodying the character or the playwright. The cast delivers with panache, and the women deserve special praise, Bennett for her winning groundedness and Aberle for her effervescent sass.
Writing in the Ubyssey Ginette Monaco said the following:
In writer/director Andrew Templeton’s Vancouver, people are fucking. They’re either fucking or they’re heartbroken, and sometimes the two overlap. The city depicted in the minimalist What You Want is represented by the lives of Dave, who has returned to Vancouver after a near death experience, and a trio of characters connected by their sexual histories. Given the subject matter, it’s an accomplishment that the play never feels crude.
Templeton is the ever-present puppet master, speaking to the audience through his actors about his own homecoming and struggles to finish the play. In places, it feels like What You Want is less the story of its characters, and more Templeton’s attempt to understand Vancouver’s changes in his absence. The resulting script is postmodern without being self-indulgent, and Templeton’s use of narration shows incredible restraint.
The play attempts to cover too much thematic territory in a short time. Ideas of home, truth and obligation are hinted at but never fully realized. However, the dialogue is genuinely funny and the actors give sincere and enthusiastic performances.
What You Want is a thoroughly engaging, modern exploration of desire, authenticity and the philosophical differences between ass men and tit men.
Writing in the Vancouver Courier, Jo Ledingham says:
If you like your theatre hip and cool, hot and sexy and very, very metatheatrical, What You Want might be exactly what you want. Writer Andrew Templeton (This Mortal Flesh, Biographies of the Dead and Dying) not only writes himself into his play, at one point all four characters claim to be Andrew Templeton with a shared memory of a moth flapping around in a Greyhound bus. Later they drop the Andrew Templeton act and become Laura (Gillian Bennett) and Dave (Russell Bennett) who meet via Craigslist and Rob (Sean Tyson) and Starling (Rachel Aberle), a UBC philosophy prof and a student/hooker who are having it off. I could do with less bungled anal sex and tits and ass conversations and more of the "where did Vancouver go" and "what has that done to us." Are these four urban characters screwed up, for example, because the city they live in has lost its soul? But the performances are terrific and it's a witty, with-it script.
What You Want is an Outrageous Sex Comedy (18+) for Those Who Haven’t Grown Up Yet
After last year’s smash hit, Biographies of the Dead & Dying, MachineFair returns to the Vancouver International Fringe Festival with What You Want a play about Vancouver and its current inhabitants.
In 2001, Andrew Templeton returned to his hometown of Vancouver after a fifteen year absence. What You Want is the almost-true story of what he found. Weaving a one-man show through the stories of four characters, the play probes the sexual desires and foibles of a city that is at once real and imagined. A play that proves you can't go home because it isn’t there anymore.
Featuring: Rachel Aberle, Gillian Bennett, Russell Bennett, Sean Tyson
Writer & Director: Andrew Templeton
Assistant Director & Designer: Kyla Gardiner
Producer: Jill Margo
Stage Manager: Jo Gray
What You Want one of the featured shows on Beyond Robson.
Praise for MachineFair’s last Fringe show:
"Quite possibly one of the best plays I have ever seen...an excellent mix of suspense and thriller."
~ Alex Hutt, Press+1
"This is a smart, hour-long investigation into what it takes to be a writer: the sacrifices that the choice entails, the line between where imagination and madness lies."
~ Marsha Lederman, Globe and Mail
Showtimes for What You Want:
Thursday, September 9th @ 9pm*
Saturday, September 11th @ 6pm
Sunday, September 12th @ 7:30pm
Thursday, September 16th @ 9:15pm
Friday, September 17th @ 10pm
Saturday, September 18th @ 9:30pm
*half-price opening
NB: the print program contains an error. There is no Weds show of What You Want! All online information correct.
WARNING: sexually explicit language and themes; not suitable for the prudish or easily offended.
Vancouver: This is What You Want
What You Want Photos by the incredible Wendy D.
Part of the vision of MachineFair is to create work that is intellectually stimulating, emotionally truthful and accessible. With their Toronto production of Biographies of the Dead & Dying, audiences can expect to witness a perfect shot, a bull’s-eye.
~George Perry, Mooney on Theatre.