(Street Life is a new feature that looks at what's playing in the stock market.)

* ACT I: The Home Run Petrolifera Petroleum (TSX:PDP) $7.77. Up 344 per cent (since Nov. 8 initial public offering at $1.75) You'd be hard pressed to unearth an oil and gas junior that has taken the market by storm in such a short time as this oilpatch grand slam. Even with the oil and gas sector cooling its heels late in the year with oil prices drifting lower, Petrolifera has gone straight up without catching its breath. This play has been rocketing on some eye-popping drilling results at its 100-per-cent owned project in Argentina. Petrolifera has been churning out press releases and has already announced five successive crude oil hits from its wells, including two wells the company ranks as significant discoveries. Petrolifera's success has also lit up the shares of Connacher Oil & Gas (TSX:CLL), whose shares have almost doubled. Connacher owns a 35-per-cent equity stake in Petrolifera.

* ACT II: The Bomb Tembec Inc. (TSX:TBC) $1.29. Down 81.8 per cent (since January/05) Grotesque. That's the word shareholder activist Stephen Jarislowsky of investment firm Jarislowsky Fraser used to describe the controversial compensation package Tembec CEO Frank Dottori received for overseeing the crash of his company's stock in '05. That might be a polite way of putting it compared to the way some stockholders feel about the company's track record. While those who held their shares in the floundering forest-products company took an 81.8-per-cent hit, Dottori received $1.6 million in pay, including a bonus of $587,066. Under Dottori's leadership, the company lost $134.9 million ($1.58 per share) in the third quarter. Shares in Tembec are down more than 90 per cent in the past five years with Dottori at the helm. He has been the CEO of the Quebec-based forestry giant since 1979.

* ACT III: The Blockbuster Takeover Barrick Gold (TSX:ABX) $31.65 (as of Dec. 21). Down 0.3 per cent (based on daily trading on the Dec. 21 deal) While Barrick was toasting the blockbuster deal to acquire Placer Dome Gold (TSX: PDG) that would make it the world's largest gold producer, shareholders weren't in quite the same celebratory spirits. Barrick's shares remained flat as stale champagne on a day when gold stocks were flying high. Barrick's initial hostile offer of $9.4 billion US had Placer in a snit, but the gold giants made up when Barrick upped the ante by $1 billion. The largest takeover of a gold company in Canadian history moved Barrick from No. 3 in the world standings to No. 1, ahead of Newmont Mining, formerly the world's top gold producer, and South Africa's AngloGold Ashanti. Since Barrick put Placer in play, the latter's shares have soared 33 per cent.

* ACT IV: The All-American Blowout General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM) $18.83. Down 39.2 per cent (since Kirk Kerkorian's May 9 play for GM stock) When 88-year-old billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian rocked the markets by making a play for a nine-per-cent share of General Motors in May, there was rampant speculation about his motive and whether he saw something that others couldn't in the troubled automaker. As things turned out, it seems Kerkorian did see something - a tax writeoff, which could come in handy considering his estimated net worth is about $9 billion US. Yes, that was Kerkorian dumping GM shares en masse in December in the height of tax-loss selling season, reducing his stake from 9.9 per cent to 7.8 per cent.

* ACT V: The Trust Comeback Arriscraft International Income Fund (TSX: AIN.UN) $6.06. Up 73.1 per cent (since trading at a 52-week low of $3.50 on Dec. 5) Those trust pundits who spent the holiday season sifting through the carnage of the sector and took a flyer on Arriscraft while it was languishing near its bottom in early December were handsomely rewarded with a merry Christmas rally. The comeback started around the time that Arriscraft, the manufacturer of masonry products, ushered in new CEO David Boles, the ex-CEO of Quebec World's $5-billion North American division. The company picked up steam as investors speculated that it may be on the verge of resuming monthly cash distributions to unitholders. The stock took a 60-per-cent hit in July when Arriscraft dropped a bombshell in the laps of unitholders by suspending its distributions. While Arriscraft has managed to escape the doghouse, few of the trust sector's other disastrous plays of '05 have been able to muster decent rallies.

* ACT VI: The Breakout CSI Wireless (TSX:CSY) $1.55. Up 39.6 per cent (since hitting 52-week low of $1.11 on Nov. 8) The late-year bargain hunters didn't need CSI's GPS (global positioning system) technology to locate this beaten tech stock. Soon after releasing disappointing financials in early November, CSI, a Calgary-based manufacturer of wireless and GPS products, hit its 52-week low of $1.11, 75 per cent off its high of 2005, and languished into mid-December. Many of the tech stocks that had been the victim of tax-loss selling started to turn in mid-December, but few managed to rally as sharply as CSI. The stock broke out in the week before Christmas with the shares vaulting key technical resistance with a weekly 28-per-cent surge on increasing volume. CSI fell out of favour in early November when the company released third-quarter results that showed a $5.8 million loss (13 cents per share).

* ACT VII: The Breakdown Zenon Environmental (TSX:ZEN) $18. Down 22.4 per cent (in a two-day selloff through Dec. 23) Zenon's water-purification technologies can apparently do wonders in treating wastewater. Unfortunately, there is no technology known to man that can rescue a stock that has broken a critical technical support level. Zenon threw a nasty curve at the street by warning that it expected an operating loss of $10 million to $12 million in the fourth quarter and the shares plummeted through support at $19.84. The company estimated it would lose $12 million to $14 million for the full 2005 fiscal year. Said Andrew Benedek, Zenon's CEO: "We will continue to focus on the profitability of our business."

* ACT VIII: The Penny Jackpot Mawson Resources (TSXV:MAW) $1.43 (as of Dec. 21). Up 116.7 per cent (in a three-day rally) Mawson's initial results from its 100-per-cent owned uranium project in Sweden had one penny stock pundit glowing. "These are extremely rich numbers," wrote Danny Deadlock, editor of the Microcap newsletter (www.microcap.com). "In fact, so much so that I'm surprised they didn't run into major issues as to shipping and sampling, as whoever took them is likely 'glowing.' " Deadlock featured Mawson shares in his newsletter six months ago when they were at 43 cents. Mawson reported that based on samples taken from its property, it believes it may have an "Athabasca-style uranium body," a reference to the rich deposits in the Athabasca region of Saskatchewan.

The Vancouver company also has a gold project in Sweden.

* Statistics are based on stock prices through Dec. 23 unless otherwise specified.

(Gyle Konotopetz can be reached at gyle@businessedge.ca)