How to tap the sap
There’s a reason February usually clocks in at 28 days. A minute longer and we’d start chewing the furniture.
Temperatures are still down. Snow is still high. Days are still short. Winter boots still litter our entryways. And even though boring January’s behind us, still no civic holiday brightens the horizon.
Obviously, February suffers from an excess of still-ness. So much inaction creates an equal and opposite reaction: when we can be still no longer, our creativity rises like sap in a maple. We tap that creativity and boil it down to the sweet stuff that tops off our winter and eases us into spring.
Two of the best ways to tap the sap require a stage and an audience. All you have to do is decide on which side of the “fourth wall” you wish to play: as entertainer or entertainee. Some events let you straddle the wall and these make February a month to actually look forward to, not just get through. It’s time to haul out the costumes, tune up for the sing-alongs, and get your dancing legs in shape.
One February back in the early ‘80s I attended a Mardi Gras festival in rural Smithers to which I came costumed as a float: an upright, if not upstanding, piano. The only way I could see what I was tripping over was through the eyes of the paper mache cat perched on the top. Our parade of about a dozen precariously giddy cardboard creations tromped through the snow and -20 degree dark toward the glow of the Glenwood Hall. Inside, a northern Mardi Gras was in full Canajun swing. After we squeezed through the door, our crazy parade circled the dance floor in the dim party light. The communal wood stove toasted our frosty bits before we exited the side door where we reentered moments later in our ‘walkabout’ costumes, equally colourful and much more dance-friendly.
The Mardis Gras festival filled the gap left by the Valentino’s performance/dance/party, which back then ran only every so often but not nearly often enough. Valentino’s was a sporadic February celebration that became legend—it had it all. Sexy clothes, antsy locals and terrific talent made it one of the best parties of the year.
Happily, Valentino’s has been back for a while, this year with a twist. Valentango’s will surely become another page in the Glenwood (a.k.a. Driftwood Hall) history book. By the time you read this, tickets will surely have sold out so watch for it next year (warm bodies willing).
Another treatment for spring fever is community theatre, for which I have a soft spot as it was where Hans and I first met. In our first play with the Bulkley Valley Players, he, the director, cast me as a boy; in a later production, I played his mother (insert Freudian joke here). Spring productions were always the most intense.
One February evening before rehearsal for Agatha Christies’ Mousetrap, I attended an aerobics class in which a substitute instructor took us through some particularly egregious moves involving riding invisible horses and lassoing equally invisible cows.
I bounced into rehearsal laughing to my fellow actors about this ridiculous person, only to discover that this person’s husband was part of the cast. In the play, his character attempts to strangle my character in act three—and that evening he rehearsed with great enthusiasm.
(After a seven-year hiatus in Prince George, Hans and I—now with three kids in tow— returned to Smithers. I wondered where the Bulkley Valley Players had gone, but when I signed up for the community choir, voila, there they were! Still playing…just a different game.)
While northern communities are pros at amateur entertainment, a Prince George pair is pro at professional entertainment. Ted Price and Ann Laughlin have worked tirelessly to create a gem of a professional theatre, featuring primarily Canadian plays (along with the occasional classic), and nationally renowned stage actors. They boast the highest per capita ticket sales of any professional theatre in Canada.
The most surprising thing is, while Theatre Northwest productions are extremely popular with Prince George area patrons, they’re hardly known west of Vanderhoof. If ever you need a reason for a Prince George road trip, TNW is it!
Of course, if you’re not into indoor activities, you can turn to the many great outdoor sports we enjoy in the north—sales in hot chocolate are hotter than ever—but when you start to feel antsy, what do you do? How do you cope with cabin fever?
Here at Northword, we too suffer a bit o’ the ol’ spring fever. What better tonic than a few cosmetic renovations? This means that in the next few issues you’ll see some changes—nothing too drastic—think of it as our version of a fresh coat of paint. The same, but different—and hopefully better.
Oh…and did I mention…? You’ll be seeing our issues on newsstands six times per year now, instead of just four. More of a good thing!
It’s Northword’s way of tapping the sap.
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