Theatre review: Big laughs as East Van Panto: Robin Hood satirizes a city bent on selling out
Outsized comic characterizations and power singing meet fearless political bite in Theatre Replacement’s latest musical at the York
East Van Panto: Robin Hood’s Prince Ken does his thing. Photo by Emily Cooper
Theatre Replacement presents East Van Panto: Robin Hood at the York Theatre to January 5
‘TIS THE SEASON for good old-fashioned East Van class warfare. It should come as no surprise that this year’s Panto is among the more politically edgy installments—it is a parody of Robin Hood, after all. But man, it’s hard to stop snickering at just how gleefully this one tears down a certain civic regime whose promise to bring “swagger” back to a certain city has entailed such absurdities as shotgunning beers and pumping iron in board rooms.
As Steffanie Davis’s scene-stealing Toni the Pony cop quips sarcastically to someone she’s ticketing for trespassing at a newly pay-to-play Trout Lake, “Take it up with the parks board… Oops! My mistake! We ain’t got a parks board no more!”
So, praise for sheer subversive bravado goes to writing team Jiv Parasram and Christine Quintana, whose hugely enjoyable Beauty and the Beast last year barely hinted at the hyperlocal political bite they had in store for this sophomore effort. Ditto for actor, singing sensation, and physical comedian Jason Sakaki: his “Prince Ken” sports customized white-velour tracksuits and pageboy hairdos that scream “privilege”, and he’s forever guzzling Prime and dialling up “Chip” on the cellphone he keeps tucked in his designer fanny pack.
In another laugh-out-loud sequence, the brilliant minds at the “Palace” send robo-brarians in to replace human staff at Britannia library. And like so much of this sendup of the lululemoning of Vancouver, it’s hilarious—but also hits painfully close to home. The central setup is that Robin and the Merry Thems (a gaggle of scruffy East Van wildlife) have to steal the gigantic “key to the city” that will unlock all the corporate gates that Prince Ken has erected around parks.
Amid the exuberant tearing down of City Hall (and public art, but that’s another tangent), this show boasts a big amount of talent. Davis not only hits new comedic terrain as a kind of Scorsese-styled gangster-cop with hooves for hands, but brings down the house when she lets her singing voice loose on songs like Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black”. Davis also has some smashing duets with newcomer Hayley Sullivan, the effortlessly burnished mezzo who plays Robin Hood here. They pull off elaborate polyphony in a Veda Hille-arranged mashup of “Jolene”, “Wrecking Ball”, and “Texas Hold ’Em” of all things; it has to be seen and heard to be believed. Sakaki, meanwhile, displays enough range to slay even the unlikely metal knockdown “Master of Puppets”.
The always-great choreographer Amanda Testini energizes it all with everything from bossa-nova moves to hip-hop breaks; a parody of the Bloodhound Gang’s “The Bad Touch” tears up Britannia Library (“nuthin’ but mammals” becoming “Dewey De-ci-mals”).
Mark Chavez in East Van Panto: Robin Hood. Photo by Emily Cooper
Steffanie Davis in East Van Panto: Robin Hood. Photo by Emily Cooper
There are some genuine big laughs in this Panto—and not all at the expense of Mayor “Bro”. Many come credit of maniacally multitasking Panto veteran Mark Chavez, upping his already ace comedic game by playing everything from a Brit punk-rock hedgehog to a scraggly goose prone to platitudes like “And so the Karmic wheel doth turn”. As usual, other gut laughs might depend on how familiar you are with the Drive area—say, the curious mud warning signs at Trout Lake.
Amid all the mayhem, in fact, the one character that gets a bit lost is the titular one. It’s not that Robin Hood’s journey to accepting their identity as an Australian marsupial isn’t touching (you kind of have to see it to understand) but the erstwhile Prince of Thieves’ quieter story is somewhat overwhelmed by the crazily outsized characterizations that populate the stage.
Outsized seems to fit a world that’s increasingly surreal and upside-down right now. Honestly, it wouldn’t even feel that far-fetched at this moment to see a Vancouver park named after a yoga brand (“Bro” is already working to get rid of the parks board.) And as the squirrels and raccoons sing in the finale, “Here in East Van/We live in the parks”: ever seen Victoria Park on a warm summer evening? As an old white dude once said, “a little rebellion now and then is a good thing”—and, thanks as ever to Theatre Replacement’s inspired madness, having a big, cathartic laugh while doing it is even better. 
Hayley Sullivan and Jason Sakaki in East Van Panto: Robin Hood. Photo by Emily Cooper
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