'testimony' at pacific theatre

It was a fabulous evening last night. This Second Stage event was called Testimony and had the same format and feel as Christmas Presence only on the theme of being human, vs. Christmas. Ron Reed and others read short pieces interspersed with music. For example Ron read pieces by Frederich Buechner, Garrison Keillor, and three or four others. Carolyn Arends read part of her testimony telling of the summer she went through a crisis of faith. She ended it with “It Has to Be You” which was birthed out of that experience.

The musical line-up, besides Carolyn Arends, included Sheree Plett (beautiful plaintive voice which has that flexible flip-into-flasetto thing happening a lot), an excellent songwriter / singer named Lance ? (I’m terrible at remembering last names), and Wyndham Thiessen. The latter was very funny. Sang his own comedic creations in mostly bluegrass style. His song “Eschatology” was hilarious.

The usual Christmas Presence band backed up the singers – a collection of acoustic instruments played by the musicians Nelson Boschman assembled, including lots of guitars - even a lap one - a couple of keyboards, a double bass (double bass adds so much!), violin and mandolin the last two played by the Spencer Capier who switched from one to the other as easily as a person goes from talk to a whisper.

The atmosphere of these evenings is informal, a get-together-in-the-living-room-to-play-music feel with the musicians and story-tellers mostly in jeans and such. But the content last night was, as always, rich – a thoughtful satisfying menu with the deep stuff balanced by humor, answers countered with questions and the threat of tears erased by the urge to laugh. Not surprisingly, yesterday evening the house was full with a program long enough to warrant an intermission. But even though it was a good 10 o’clock by the time the last story was told, the last note played, I still felt like a kid who was being sent to bed in the middle of the party, and had to restrain myself from shouting out “More!”