I can do nothing but apologise for how ridiculously late this review is coming out. I have a backlog of reviews stretching back the past couple months that I'm going to be finishing and shooting out over the next few days, and they'll end up on the blog somewhat out of chronological order. I have no excuses, but the best I can do is get them out now.
Better Living is a peculiar play. I went in knowing nothing about it, except that it comes from the mind of notable Canadian playwright George F. Walker, who has a talent for taking the less savoury aspects of society and churning them into his own sort of poetry. He takes characters who are deeply flawed and cast aside by society, yet still clinging to hope. This play comes out of that idea; part of the "looking for the light" phase, as Natasha Martina points out in her director's notes. It is an exploration of the madness of modern living, and in that tradition, it is a mad play.
We meet a poor Toronto family in a dilapidated home at a very strained moment in their lives. The matriarch Nora has gone off the deep-end and begun work expanding their basement for unclear reasons and without any skill or experience in construction. The youngest daughter Gail is in a mixed-up rebellious phase, shacking up with rocker (but not really) dude Junior and loudly announcing her plans to drop out of community college in the hopes that someone will care enough to talk her out of it. Middle daughter Mary Ann is an emotional wreck returning home after a failed marriage, while eldest daughter Elizabeth is on her way to becoming a lawyer and interested in putting her past as far behind herself as possible. Their lives are shaken up when their estranged father returns home to rule the roost once again, and starts spinning a web of manipulation. To make matters worse, Nora is still convinced her husband is dead, and thinks this new stranger merely bears a striking resemblance.
The story takes plenty of odd turns as home life for the dysfunctional family as their home situation becomes cult-like. Loyalties split, relationships fracture, and Nora becomes more and more deluded. Throughout the story, the strange renovations in the basement remain in the centre. Nora's attempt to create something good on her own merits is hijacked by her old husband Tom, who has grand visions for the "sanctuary" (from what and for what is not entirely certain). His indomitable presence infects the lives of everyone in the family, re-sculpting them accordingly; but the one thing that is endlessly troubling is that you're never really sure if the family is better or worse off with him there.
Better Living is a peculiar play, as I said before. The metaphorical curtain opens on a very intricate set (probably the most intricate domestic set I've seen since Jim Guedo's Rabbit Hole) of a house that is either half-complete or half-fallen apart. That sets the tone for a play about broken relationships and broken people, where you're trying to figure out if they are in the process of pulling together, or about to go completely nuts. But the intricacies are there, characters building levels upon levels; mostly we see a certain side of them, but like the open walls of the house we get glimpses into their internal workings. As the house continues to get battered in the hopes of building something better, characters are also smashed and mangled, but leading on with the hope that there is something better waiting ahead.
With a cast of 7, this is one of smaller Greystone productions, like Eurydice. But unlike Eurydice, where characters were separated into distinct strata, in Better Living there is a much more even ebb and flow. We enter the story tangentially, starting with a conversation between youngest daughter Gail and her uncle Jack. It takes time for the characters and the scene to settle into a groove, so the first few minutes don't feel right, like they don't fit anywhere. But as all the characters flow in and converge on the centre, the cast builds to something complex and intriguing.
Kyle Kuchirka plays Junior, the shiftless slacker who turns into an eager workhorse. I don't know Kyle personally, but he seems well-suited for this role. He is full of energy, combining rock & roll slacker with a twist of bright-eyed innocence. He convincingly plays dumb, but attacks every scene with lovable commitment. Wade Klassen as uncle Jack, the priest, is a bit like a walking IV of cynicism. He's the least engaged of all characters, and mostly he is content to let scenes happen around him, but his dry, sardonic wit always adds some black humour to the scene. Then Kashtin Moen as the estranged father Tom is gruff and indomitable, grounded and confident in the way he handles the stage. While he spends his time playing a dour, emotionally abusive jackass, he injects the character with just enough folksy charm that you feel yourself slightly drawn towards him.
But it's the women who run the show. Lauren May is the youngest sister Gail, bright and perky but with a rebellious streak. She is still untested, and has a bit of trouble dropping into the character, but she maintains a good level of energy throughout the play. Jalisa Gonie is the timid middle sister Mary Ann. She is reminiscent of Alyson Hannigan with her scattered confidence and general anxiety. She spends a lot of time off to the side looking fearful, but stays connected the whole time; and when she does step forward, her innocence and out-of-sorts personality drive a lot of humour. Then Anna Mazurik is dynamite as Elizabeth, the oldest daughter. She struts her lawyery confidence early on, but demonstrates a real fire once Tom is back in the picture. She has a lot of control over her own stage presence, whether burning bright or smouldering quietly, and she handles a range of emotions deftly. There were some character issues that did not sit so well with me, like how Gail and Elizabeth both experience major character reversals in the second act, though they don't seem to follow from anything in particular. But I assign that problem more to the text than the performance.
And naturally, Elizabeth Nepjuk steals the show. She plays the grand old matriarch, Nora, obsessed with home renovations. She is the source of a lot of the comedy in the play with her excellent timing and stage intuition. But she also carries many of the more poignant and philosophical moments. Nora is, to be blunt, totally nuts, and her severe mental discombobulation provides a lot of humour; but Nepjuk's performance does not lampoon these mental issues. She gives the character a bright-eyed dignity, and the sense that her disconnection from conventional reality gives her a sort of clarity that the other characters lack, embroiled in earthly concerns.
This is a more reserved play for Natasha Martina, lacking the movement choreography she is best known for in the department. But it definitely contains her personality. There is a subtler direction of movement going on, the way it embodies the state of the characters at various points. The movement is also played for humour, like the attempt at moving a giant wooden beam down to the basement. And the whole domestic chaos of Better Living is imbued with Natasha's playful spirit. It creates a skewed sense of reality, not to the extent of Ends of the Earth or Attempts on her Life, but something just odd enough that we can laugh at it, yet feel enlightened by it.
Better Living is a peculiar play, yes. It makes some jumps and turns that I can't find an adequate explanation for, and it's abound with more than a couple inconsistencies. But the production pulls together very well, with a tremendous cast that has enough chemistry that it can nail all the dark humour and create a fun play.
Tuesday, 17 December 2013
Saturday, 19 October 2013
Beirut
Theatre is about vulnerability. A play will not work if the people involved are too restrained. Actors need to be able to put themselves in intimate positions in public spaces, but like with all things, some plays are going to require more vulnerability than others. Beirut is like an exposed nerve ending with a glass of ice water hovering precariously over it.
This year's Live Five seasons begins with Hectik Theatre's presentation of a crushingly bleak dystopian future and the painful search for love and fulfillment within it. Beirut was penned by New York playwright Alan Bowne back in 1987, in response to the still-mysterious AIDS epidemic (and is all the more tragic in light of the fact that Bowne died from AIDS two years later). It takes place in a non-specific future when the United States (or possibly the whole world) is in the throes of paranoia over a terrifying new disease that is spread through intimate contact. All those who carry the infection are rounded up and sealed inside ghettos to await death. Those who aren't infected are "free" in a sense, but live in fear under constant monitoring, and are forbidden to have sex with anyone. The two characters are Torch and Blue (good 1980s dystopian New York names). Torch is a "P" (for positive) shut away in a ghetto with the other infected waiting for his skin to start falling off. His old flame Blue is still "N" (negative), but she has grown sick of the banal existence outside and has broken into the sick camp to be with Torch.
Beirut digs deep into its themes of mortality and freedom. It raises the question of what, precisely, makes life worth living. Blue breaks into the ghetto ready to accept a potentially agonising death in exchange for a brief period of what she considers real living. Torch, meanwhile, is ready to send her away, condemning himself to die in solitude, in the interest of saving her from disease. As time goes on, he is forced to choose what he values more: Blue's life or her spirit. Should he grant her happiness in what is tantamount to killing her, or should he save her and let her go on being miserable. Beirut raises the bold and potentially dangerous question of how recklessly we should treat our lives in pursuit of exhilaration. But the outside, illness-free world is made to sound so hopeless and lifeless, we have no choice but to take Blue's side. I feel that is the one weakness in the script; it could have been more ambiguous about the quality of life of the "N"s and gone to a darker place by leaving us to feel more ambivalent about Blue's self-sacrifice.
The director Kenn McLeod mentioned in his notes that he has been thinking about doing this play for some time, and I can understand why. It is not a production to be mounted lightly. A thorough grokking of the script is bound to take time, then one has to wait for the perfect climate, for the right people to come along who can trust each other intimately. This production requires a lot of trust.
McLeod created an elegant blend of romance and horror onstage. The set is a dilapidated urban hovel that looks like it belongs to a homeless person squatting in an old warehouse. A single stained mattress is the focal point of the room, surrounded by scenic array of cracked walls and tin cans. At an instant, it feels dirty. But the way the two characters revolve around the makeshift bed gives the set a sense of primal sensuality; this feeling is buttressed by the use of candlelight.
The pathos of Beirut is grounded in raw, sexual energy. But it never gets exploitative, or even particularly sexy, because this is always an uncomfortable undercurrent stemming from the darkness of the play's story. The actors have to be vulnerable, both physically (they spend the whole play in varying states of undress) and emotionally, but they strike a remarkable balance by maintaining that energy as well as the darkness. The scene gets intimate without ever being too graphic. There are times this balance works better than others. The play opens with a simulated masturbation scene which was on one hand kind of explicit, but on the other hand so cursory that in the effort to avoid getting to graphic it didn't seem at all accurate; it probably could have been framed differently to be less explicit but more convincing. Probably the most deftly handled moment of tension is when a guard (played by Jacob Yaworski, who had to step in last minute but delivers a chilling performance all the same) comes by for an "inspection". It's the most sexually graphic part of the play, all handled in low light, and really drags the sexual energy into its darkest place, leaving the audience horrified and squirming.
Munish Sharma is Torch. I am not familiar with Sharma's past work, but he definitely brings an air of experience to this play. He portrays the frayed nerve endings of someone who used to have it all together but now finds himself hanging on the precipice. He's endearing in his dreams about life outside the prison; he can bring out little moments of humour throughout. He's powerful, but crumbling. Sharma invigorates Torch with passion worthy of his name, but he can also dial it back to a very soft place.
I have seen Kate Herriot once previously, in Bottome's Dream, and while I knew she was talented I couldn't have imagined her doing something like this. As Blue, Herriot is fearless. She's fiery. From her pithy comments early on to her impassioned pleas toward the climax, she launches herself into this role. Every moment is connected from the way she explores Torch's room to how she entices him toward her, she is centred in the moment and all of her movements are fluid and natural. She lays so much of herself bare, I can't imagine what her process was, but it comes together seamlessly. She goes out onstage like a firecracker but never loses the feeling of fragility.
But talking about the two actors separately is only half the story. Beirut never would have worked if they couldn't have worked well together. But Herriot and Sharma are electric. The play is like a skeleton track, and the two of them hurtle down it, head-first, with no fear. Their moments together are so intimate and genuine that it is like the whole theatre dissolves away. But they also play off each other in snappy banter, bouncing between notes of love and anger. There was clearly a lot of trust built into this production, and each actor had to give everything to their stage partner. The end result is elegant, intimate, and smouldering.
I don't know how well this level of energy could have sustained itself, but coming it at a little under an hour, Beirut keeps its candle burning just as long as it needs to. It doesn't feel at all rushed or cut short, but lies in perfect balance.
This year's Live Five seasons begins with Hectik Theatre's presentation of a crushingly bleak dystopian future and the painful search for love and fulfillment within it. Beirut was penned by New York playwright Alan Bowne back in 1987, in response to the still-mysterious AIDS epidemic (and is all the more tragic in light of the fact that Bowne died from AIDS two years later). It takes place in a non-specific future when the United States (or possibly the whole world) is in the throes of paranoia over a terrifying new disease that is spread through intimate contact. All those who carry the infection are rounded up and sealed inside ghettos to await death. Those who aren't infected are "free" in a sense, but live in fear under constant monitoring, and are forbidden to have sex with anyone. The two characters are Torch and Blue (good 1980s dystopian New York names). Torch is a "P" (for positive) shut away in a ghetto with the other infected waiting for his skin to start falling off. His old flame Blue is still "N" (negative), but she has grown sick of the banal existence outside and has broken into the sick camp to be with Torch.
Beirut digs deep into its themes of mortality and freedom. It raises the question of what, precisely, makes life worth living. Blue breaks into the ghetto ready to accept a potentially agonising death in exchange for a brief period of what she considers real living. Torch, meanwhile, is ready to send her away, condemning himself to die in solitude, in the interest of saving her from disease. As time goes on, he is forced to choose what he values more: Blue's life or her spirit. Should he grant her happiness in what is tantamount to killing her, or should he save her and let her go on being miserable. Beirut raises the bold and potentially dangerous question of how recklessly we should treat our lives in pursuit of exhilaration. But the outside, illness-free world is made to sound so hopeless and lifeless, we have no choice but to take Blue's side. I feel that is the one weakness in the script; it could have been more ambiguous about the quality of life of the "N"s and gone to a darker place by leaving us to feel more ambivalent about Blue's self-sacrifice.
The director Kenn McLeod mentioned in his notes that he has been thinking about doing this play for some time, and I can understand why. It is not a production to be mounted lightly. A thorough grokking of the script is bound to take time, then one has to wait for the perfect climate, for the right people to come along who can trust each other intimately. This production requires a lot of trust.
McLeod created an elegant blend of romance and horror onstage. The set is a dilapidated urban hovel that looks like it belongs to a homeless person squatting in an old warehouse. A single stained mattress is the focal point of the room, surrounded by scenic array of cracked walls and tin cans. At an instant, it feels dirty. But the way the two characters revolve around the makeshift bed gives the set a sense of primal sensuality; this feeling is buttressed by the use of candlelight.
The pathos of Beirut is grounded in raw, sexual energy. But it never gets exploitative, or even particularly sexy, because this is always an uncomfortable undercurrent stemming from the darkness of the play's story. The actors have to be vulnerable, both physically (they spend the whole play in varying states of undress) and emotionally, but they strike a remarkable balance by maintaining that energy as well as the darkness. The scene gets intimate without ever being too graphic. There are times this balance works better than others. The play opens with a simulated masturbation scene which was on one hand kind of explicit, but on the other hand so cursory that in the effort to avoid getting to graphic it didn't seem at all accurate; it probably could have been framed differently to be less explicit but more convincing. Probably the most deftly handled moment of tension is when a guard (played by Jacob Yaworski, who had to step in last minute but delivers a chilling performance all the same) comes by for an "inspection". It's the most sexually graphic part of the play, all handled in low light, and really drags the sexual energy into its darkest place, leaving the audience horrified and squirming.
Munish Sharma is Torch. I am not familiar with Sharma's past work, but he definitely brings an air of experience to this play. He portrays the frayed nerve endings of someone who used to have it all together but now finds himself hanging on the precipice. He's endearing in his dreams about life outside the prison; he can bring out little moments of humour throughout. He's powerful, but crumbling. Sharma invigorates Torch with passion worthy of his name, but he can also dial it back to a very soft place.
I have seen Kate Herriot once previously, in Bottome's Dream, and while I knew she was talented I couldn't have imagined her doing something like this. As Blue, Herriot is fearless. She's fiery. From her pithy comments early on to her impassioned pleas toward the climax, she launches herself into this role. Every moment is connected from the way she explores Torch's room to how she entices him toward her, she is centred in the moment and all of her movements are fluid and natural. She lays so much of herself bare, I can't imagine what her process was, but it comes together seamlessly. She goes out onstage like a firecracker but never loses the feeling of fragility.
But talking about the two actors separately is only half the story. Beirut never would have worked if they couldn't have worked well together. But Herriot and Sharma are electric. The play is like a skeleton track, and the two of them hurtle down it, head-first, with no fear. Their moments together are so intimate and genuine that it is like the whole theatre dissolves away. But they also play off each other in snappy banter, bouncing between notes of love and anger. There was clearly a lot of trust built into this production, and each actor had to give everything to their stage partner. The end result is elegant, intimate, and smouldering.
I don't know how well this level of energy could have sustained itself, but coming it at a little under an hour, Beirut keeps its candle burning just as long as it needs to. It doesn't feel at all rushed or cut short, but lies in perfect balance.
Monday, 14 October 2013
Eurydice
Whimsically tragic. Yes, that is the most concise way of putting it. A tale of loss and longing, the power of words, and family bonds that echo through eternity.
Eurydice marks the beginning of the 69th Greystone Theatre season (and the 7th that I have had the privilege to witness). Our fair troupe tackles Sara Ruhl's modernised version of the old Orpheus myth. It's a poignant travelogue to the depths of Hades where the titular character finds herself cut off from the land of the living, fighting to retain her identity.
The traditional Orpheus myth involves the most legendary singer in Greece, Orpheus, and his beloved bride, Eurydice. When Eurydice dies tragically on their wedding night, Orpheus ventures deep into the underworld, playing his music, to bargain for her release. But he finds her freedom is not without a catch.
In Ruhl's adaptation, the couple are young lovers in the 1960s (ish?). When tragedy strikes, Eurydice finds herself cast down to Hades where she makes the long trip to her final resting place, first on a boat, then down a raining elevator, and then on a train that is not a train but rather the opposite of a train (we're not told what that is, but we're also not told that it isn't a giraffe). Nonetheless, after her abstract journey through the underworld, Eurydice arrives with no knowledge of who she is. There she unknowingly encounters her father, who uses his secret knowledge of the language of the living to restore her identity to her. I won't go into specifics about the play's ending, but I'll ask everyone to remember that we're in the realm of Greek tragedy where it's considered a happy ending if someone turns into a plant.
Sara Ruhl's script brings an ethereal quality to the character interactions. She refers to her plays as "3D poems". It's a provocative concept, but upon examination it's not particularly useful. It's a vague description, but this play capitalises on vague. It spends time discussing the word "interesting", which is interesting, because I also have a habit of overusing the word interesting, interestingly enough. Beginning with the discussion between Orpheus and Eurydice on the subject of interesting arguments, and then leading up to Eurydice's fateful encounter with the Interesting Man on her wedding night, our sense of language becomes fuzzy. "Interesting" does not pass judgement of something being either good or bad; it's just a term we throw around when we feel that something is worth talking about, but we aren't sure why. Eurydice starts off pursuing this vague sense of the "interesting" and it takes her to a place where nothing seems to mean anything.
The journey through Hades brings travellers to stop at the River Lethe, where they wash away the knowledge of their previous lives and begin their existence as the dead. Eurydice's father, for reasons that are not entirely clear, managed to avoid the river and retain all of his living knowledge, including the understanding of how to read and write. After we see his poignant lamentations in the early part of the play, it is heart-breaking to see Eurydice arrive and look at her father without any idea who he is. From there we move into an exploration of the nature of death, language, and memory. The true death represented in Eurydice is not physical death, but it is the moment the spirit is dipped in the River Lethe and is divorced of their memories.
The power of language is a running theme throughout the play, the way it unites and separates us. Eurydice and Orpheus have trouble communicating in the first scene of the play, with Orpheus never quite getting the meaning behind Eurydice's words. Eurydice starts to feel distance between them, and she is tempted by the words of the Interesting Man before realising they didn't mean what she thought they did. When she arrives in the underworld her language becomes so limited that interaction involves a confusing web of talking around things (such as the "opposite of a train"). When her father is trying to explain who he is, the closest word he can get to "father" that she understands is "tree". In one darkly comic but terribly haunting scene, Eurydice finds a book in Hades but, without memory of how to read, she angrily throws it down and screams "What are you?!" Language is ally and enemy; its circumspect nature is used to both nurture and injure. But when they don't have language they don't have anything to make them human. They become as "stones".
Ruhl's script has the resonance of verse. Her 3D poem wrangles this hyperreal, weighty rhetoric loaded with pathos where no word means precisely what it seems at first. The play is a whirlwind of abstract symbolism but still anchored in this very physical and immediate connection between family members. The dialogue isn't without fault, though. The first scene with Orpheus and Eurydice on a beach has the same unrealistic sense to the dialogue without sliding into the emotional gravitas, so it comes across as half B-movie, half children's book, and half philosophical musing (yes, that's three halves, and you should count yourself lucky if that's the strangest thing you read in this review). By the time Eurydice arrives in Hades and meets her father, the dialogue slides in and out of metaphors with much greater ease and builds to a forlorn emotional intensity.
Dwayne Brenna helms this production as director. He gives it a disturbed, dream-like feel similar to what he did with Woyzeck in 2011, but also plays with the classical Greek work he did in Love of the Nightingale. He blends the 1950s/60s aesthetic with dark fantasy and a little tinge of ancient Greece. What results is a tragic and enchanting play that feels something like a Hayao Miyazaki movie filtered through the lens of Edgar Allen Poe. Dark and tragic, but still with a very magical quality.
Bev Kobelsky's costuming starts off light and airy, getting darker as we travel into the underworld. Eurydice's wedding dress is slim and sleek, which gives her wispy and ghost-like feel. However, most of the imagination in the costume department went to the three "stones", our play's twisted Greek chorus. They appear onstage dressed ostentatiously in a Victorian disco pirate gothic chic, with rigid and ruffled jet black costumes and ghoulish makeup, looking very much like they just stepped off the set of a Catalyst Theatre production.
The set is remarkable. Collin Konrath's design plays on both the abstract and the grounded planes. Large picture frames contain the Stones as they stand vigil over the unfolding narrative. A large, ominous gate is fixed in the centre of the stage, used only seldom, but remaining as this focal point to make the whole stage seem a little oppressive. The aesthetic changes going from right to left, where we have the train station and elevator, which has actual rain pouring inside it when Eurydice arrives (my hat goes off to that trick). Then a curving staircase on stage right creates a bridge to a second level; the differing heights are used to great effect to emphasise the separation between the living and the dead. So the whole set creates a series of barriers: physical, like the different heights, or abstract like the picture frames or the "room" that Eurydice's father constructs for her. Our sense of security, longing, and alienation are all bound up in the subtle shifts between these constructs onstage.
Robert Grier is an endearing Orpheus. He starts off bright and shining with innocence, although not that bright. He's the free-spirited counterpart to Eurydice's more intellectual nature. In his grief he is lost and child-like, and creates a delicate balance with the sombre reflection going on below him. Connor Brousseau plays the opposite. When he shows up as the Interesting Man, he appears mature and intellectual, but with something very menacing underneath. He succeeds at playing both charming and threatening. When Brousseau shows up later as Hades (or perhaps he was Hades all along), he is dressed like a small child, in a morbid parody of Orpheus' genuine innocence. Hades acts with the emotional immaturity of a child, but still feels very evil. The two actors complement each other very well, representing opposing facets of Eurydice's anti-intellectual plane. They also have their share of comedic moments, but Grier makes the comedy endearing, while Brousseau makes you so uncomfortable you're not sure what else to do but laugh.
The three Stones embody the dark humour of this play. On one hand, they make the most insane Greek Chorus ever to grace the stage, but on the other they represent something very tragic and sinister: the oppressive nature of death itself. They spend most of their time railing against the attempts of Eurydice and her father to reclaim pieces of their living selves, but the Stones are so over-the-top they're fun to watch. Jenna Berenbaum is shrill and Banshee-like as the Little Stone, maintaining an implausibly rigid poise and always hovering in line of emotional intensity between lamenting mother and angry crow. Kashtin Moen as the Big Stone seems less smart than the other stones, but he has a tremendous command of the stage that always makes his lines ring out. And Mikael Steponchev as the Loud Stone is the most powerful voice of the trio. He sustains a huge amount of energy through the entire play and can rattle the audience to their bones. The whole dark, Burtonesque threesome do an excellent job of delivering comic relief and dark thematic material.
Torien C Cafferata plays Eurydice's father, a bit of a dry intellectual but with a profound sense of heart underneath. He begins the play in a state of sadness, writing mournful letters that he doesn't know how to send. Upon meeting Eurydice, he pauses in a moment of defeat, seeing her lack of recognition. But small bits of vibrancy well to the surface as he begins to get through to her. More than any single element of the production, Cafferata evinces the sad, whimsical Miyazaki nature of Eurydice. So much emotion exists in small, quiet moments, such as when he is imagining walking his daughter down the aisle, or the sustained scenes of him wrapping twine around four posts to give Eurydice a makeshift room. One moment in particular where he places his hat on Eurydice's head, like she's a little girl, captured the balance of enchanting and heart-breaking. A scene near the end where he remembers the directions to the river is probably the most delicate and profound delivery of Ruhl's subtle verse.
And then, of course, there is Ciara. Ciara Richardson takes the helm of Eurydice as the title heroine. On one level, she plays a socialite princess, frustrated with Orpheus, demanding a bellhop when she arrives in the underworld. But it's clear that underneath that veneer is a sense of sadness and loneliness which Richardson carries around with her in the weight of her step. This sadness occasionally spikes into anger, which she needs to ramp up to in a very short time to bust out of the general slowness of the rest of the play. But she does it. And she really opens up in those enchanting scenes with her father, where she is reawoken to child-like delight and innocence (in constrast to Orpheus' increasing grief). It's a vulnerable performance always weighted by tragedy but lightly flitting through an array of emotions.
The music is very good. It was all performed live in a darkened corner of the stage by the musical director Rodolfo Pino-Robles and Jesse Fulcher Gagnon (who alternates with Grier to play Orpheus). The music is soft with a few spikes in it, emulating the whimsical and tragic nature of the play as a whole. My complaint would be that the music should have been brought forward more into the play itself. Considering that Orpheus is such a legendary musician, the actor's musical talents should have been put to use in the character, instead of just on nights when he wasn't acting.
Eurydice is a full play, which has the power to drag us down into the depths of despair. But for all its sadness, it is a magical experience which highlights our own humanity and reminds of those things that make us who we are - our language, our memories, our connections - and why we hold them dear.
Eurydice marks the beginning of the 69th Greystone Theatre season (and the 7th that I have had the privilege to witness). Our fair troupe tackles Sara Ruhl's modernised version of the old Orpheus myth. It's a poignant travelogue to the depths of Hades where the titular character finds herself cut off from the land of the living, fighting to retain her identity.
The traditional Orpheus myth involves the most legendary singer in Greece, Orpheus, and his beloved bride, Eurydice. When Eurydice dies tragically on their wedding night, Orpheus ventures deep into the underworld, playing his music, to bargain for her release. But he finds her freedom is not without a catch.
In Ruhl's adaptation, the couple are young lovers in the 1960s (ish?). When tragedy strikes, Eurydice finds herself cast down to Hades where she makes the long trip to her final resting place, first on a boat, then down a raining elevator, and then on a train that is not a train but rather the opposite of a train (we're not told what that is, but we're also not told that it isn't a giraffe). Nonetheless, after her abstract journey through the underworld, Eurydice arrives with no knowledge of who she is. There she unknowingly encounters her father, who uses his secret knowledge of the language of the living to restore her identity to her. I won't go into specifics about the play's ending, but I'll ask everyone to remember that we're in the realm of Greek tragedy where it's considered a happy ending if someone turns into a plant.
Sara Ruhl's script brings an ethereal quality to the character interactions. She refers to her plays as "3D poems". It's a provocative concept, but upon examination it's not particularly useful. It's a vague description, but this play capitalises on vague. It spends time discussing the word "interesting", which is interesting, because I also have a habit of overusing the word interesting, interestingly enough. Beginning with the discussion between Orpheus and Eurydice on the subject of interesting arguments, and then leading up to Eurydice's fateful encounter with the Interesting Man on her wedding night, our sense of language becomes fuzzy. "Interesting" does not pass judgement of something being either good or bad; it's just a term we throw around when we feel that something is worth talking about, but we aren't sure why. Eurydice starts off pursuing this vague sense of the "interesting" and it takes her to a place where nothing seems to mean anything.
The journey through Hades brings travellers to stop at the River Lethe, where they wash away the knowledge of their previous lives and begin their existence as the dead. Eurydice's father, for reasons that are not entirely clear, managed to avoid the river and retain all of his living knowledge, including the understanding of how to read and write. After we see his poignant lamentations in the early part of the play, it is heart-breaking to see Eurydice arrive and look at her father without any idea who he is. From there we move into an exploration of the nature of death, language, and memory. The true death represented in Eurydice is not physical death, but it is the moment the spirit is dipped in the River Lethe and is divorced of their memories.
The power of language is a running theme throughout the play, the way it unites and separates us. Eurydice and Orpheus have trouble communicating in the first scene of the play, with Orpheus never quite getting the meaning behind Eurydice's words. Eurydice starts to feel distance between them, and she is tempted by the words of the Interesting Man before realising they didn't mean what she thought they did. When she arrives in the underworld her language becomes so limited that interaction involves a confusing web of talking around things (such as the "opposite of a train"). When her father is trying to explain who he is, the closest word he can get to "father" that she understands is "tree". In one darkly comic but terribly haunting scene, Eurydice finds a book in Hades but, without memory of how to read, she angrily throws it down and screams "What are you?!" Language is ally and enemy; its circumspect nature is used to both nurture and injure. But when they don't have language they don't have anything to make them human. They become as "stones".
Ruhl's script has the resonance of verse. Her 3D poem wrangles this hyperreal, weighty rhetoric loaded with pathos where no word means precisely what it seems at first. The play is a whirlwind of abstract symbolism but still anchored in this very physical and immediate connection between family members. The dialogue isn't without fault, though. The first scene with Orpheus and Eurydice on a beach has the same unrealistic sense to the dialogue without sliding into the emotional gravitas, so it comes across as half B-movie, half children's book, and half philosophical musing (yes, that's three halves, and you should count yourself lucky if that's the strangest thing you read in this review). By the time Eurydice arrives in Hades and meets her father, the dialogue slides in and out of metaphors with much greater ease and builds to a forlorn emotional intensity.
Dwayne Brenna helms this production as director. He gives it a disturbed, dream-like feel similar to what he did with Woyzeck in 2011, but also plays with the classical Greek work he did in Love of the Nightingale. He blends the 1950s/60s aesthetic with dark fantasy and a little tinge of ancient Greece. What results is a tragic and enchanting play that feels something like a Hayao Miyazaki movie filtered through the lens of Edgar Allen Poe. Dark and tragic, but still with a very magical quality.
Bev Kobelsky's costuming starts off light and airy, getting darker as we travel into the underworld. Eurydice's wedding dress is slim and sleek, which gives her wispy and ghost-like feel. However, most of the imagination in the costume department went to the three "stones", our play's twisted Greek chorus. They appear onstage dressed ostentatiously in a Victorian disco pirate gothic chic, with rigid and ruffled jet black costumes and ghoulish makeup, looking very much like they just stepped off the set of a Catalyst Theatre production.
The set is remarkable. Collin Konrath's design plays on both the abstract and the grounded planes. Large picture frames contain the Stones as they stand vigil over the unfolding narrative. A large, ominous gate is fixed in the centre of the stage, used only seldom, but remaining as this focal point to make the whole stage seem a little oppressive. The aesthetic changes going from right to left, where we have the train station and elevator, which has actual rain pouring inside it when Eurydice arrives (my hat goes off to that trick). Then a curving staircase on stage right creates a bridge to a second level; the differing heights are used to great effect to emphasise the separation between the living and the dead. So the whole set creates a series of barriers: physical, like the different heights, or abstract like the picture frames or the "room" that Eurydice's father constructs for her. Our sense of security, longing, and alienation are all bound up in the subtle shifts between these constructs onstage.
Robert Grier is an endearing Orpheus. He starts off bright and shining with innocence, although not that bright. He's the free-spirited counterpart to Eurydice's more intellectual nature. In his grief he is lost and child-like, and creates a delicate balance with the sombre reflection going on below him. Connor Brousseau plays the opposite. When he shows up as the Interesting Man, he appears mature and intellectual, but with something very menacing underneath. He succeeds at playing both charming and threatening. When Brousseau shows up later as Hades (or perhaps he was Hades all along), he is dressed like a small child, in a morbid parody of Orpheus' genuine innocence. Hades acts with the emotional immaturity of a child, but still feels very evil. The two actors complement each other very well, representing opposing facets of Eurydice's anti-intellectual plane. They also have their share of comedic moments, but Grier makes the comedy endearing, while Brousseau makes you so uncomfortable you're not sure what else to do but laugh.
The three Stones embody the dark humour of this play. On one hand, they make the most insane Greek Chorus ever to grace the stage, but on the other they represent something very tragic and sinister: the oppressive nature of death itself. They spend most of their time railing against the attempts of Eurydice and her father to reclaim pieces of their living selves, but the Stones are so over-the-top they're fun to watch. Jenna Berenbaum is shrill and Banshee-like as the Little Stone, maintaining an implausibly rigid poise and always hovering in line of emotional intensity between lamenting mother and angry crow. Kashtin Moen as the Big Stone seems less smart than the other stones, but he has a tremendous command of the stage that always makes his lines ring out. And Mikael Steponchev as the Loud Stone is the most powerful voice of the trio. He sustains a huge amount of energy through the entire play and can rattle the audience to their bones. The whole dark, Burtonesque threesome do an excellent job of delivering comic relief and dark thematic material.
Torien C Cafferata plays Eurydice's father, a bit of a dry intellectual but with a profound sense of heart underneath. He begins the play in a state of sadness, writing mournful letters that he doesn't know how to send. Upon meeting Eurydice, he pauses in a moment of defeat, seeing her lack of recognition. But small bits of vibrancy well to the surface as he begins to get through to her. More than any single element of the production, Cafferata evinces the sad, whimsical Miyazaki nature of Eurydice. So much emotion exists in small, quiet moments, such as when he is imagining walking his daughter down the aisle, or the sustained scenes of him wrapping twine around four posts to give Eurydice a makeshift room. One moment in particular where he places his hat on Eurydice's head, like she's a little girl, captured the balance of enchanting and heart-breaking. A scene near the end where he remembers the directions to the river is probably the most delicate and profound delivery of Ruhl's subtle verse.
And then, of course, there is Ciara. Ciara Richardson takes the helm of Eurydice as the title heroine. On one level, she plays a socialite princess, frustrated with Orpheus, demanding a bellhop when she arrives in the underworld. But it's clear that underneath that veneer is a sense of sadness and loneliness which Richardson carries around with her in the weight of her step. This sadness occasionally spikes into anger, which she needs to ramp up to in a very short time to bust out of the general slowness of the rest of the play. But she does it. And she really opens up in those enchanting scenes with her father, where she is reawoken to child-like delight and innocence (in constrast to Orpheus' increasing grief). It's a vulnerable performance always weighted by tragedy but lightly flitting through an array of emotions.
The music is very good. It was all performed live in a darkened corner of the stage by the musical director Rodolfo Pino-Robles and Jesse Fulcher Gagnon (who alternates with Grier to play Orpheus). The music is soft with a few spikes in it, emulating the whimsical and tragic nature of the play as a whole. My complaint would be that the music should have been brought forward more into the play itself. Considering that Orpheus is such a legendary musician, the actor's musical talents should have been put to use in the character, instead of just on nights when he wasn't acting.
Eurydice is a full play, which has the power to drag us down into the depths of despair. But for all its sadness, it is a magical experience which highlights our own humanity and reminds of those things that make us who we are - our language, our memories, our connections - and why we hold them dear.
Saturday, 5 October 2013
My Chernobyl
As it turned out, I chose a suitably grey and dismal day to attend a play called My Chernobyl. I stepped in out of the dreary rain into the warm embrace of Persephone Theatre, and I was greeted by the sight of a cartoonish cooling tower and a mushroom cloud of cyrilic lettering above it. And I had to remind myself that I was about to watch a raucous comedy about an irradiated wasteland.
My Chernobyl is a recent Canadian play which came out of Victoria five short years ago. It offers to provide a Canadian perspective on the nuclear disaster (sort of). Our main character is David, a nice guy Canadian who has been charged with delivering his own inheritance to a cousin in Belarus. And he's doing it, presumably because he's so nice. Soon, his nice nature gets him taken advantage of by a pair of scheming locals, and wrapped up with his old relation's comely daughter, who sees wedding bells when the rich Canadian comes knocking.
It is a peculiar play. On one hand it is a tragedy of a country in shambles with its people forgotten (and the value they place on American culture is somewhat amusing given recent events). On the other hand it is a rollicking semi-Vaudevillian comedy with a little bit of fairy tale mixed in. Our setting is the edge of the "exclusion zone" - the 30km radius around Chernobyl deemed uninhabitable. People in this area are prone to cancer but unfortunately lacking in super powers. It's as hardscrabble a life as you can imagine. So when we watch the scheming supporting characters manoeuvre for more of David's money, we do so with the knowledge that they are clawing through the dirt for survival; a classic stock crook is underscored with a real sense of tragedy. All set to a soundscape of Bryan Adams music.
Despite its basis in a real-world disaster (even more immediate now with the recent disaster in Japan), My Chernobyl maintains a whimsical feel. Scene transitions are accompanied by folk dancing interludes, where U of S acting alumna Alex Hartshorn puts her authentic Ukrainian dance skills to work keeping the stage vibrant with some beautiful choreography. When there is no dancing, we get these cartoonish scenes of "potato bandits" sneaking around the countryside. These transitions make the whole set feel alive, shifting from one place to another. And the way the actors themselves are involved in the set movement creates a cohesive feeling, like the flora and fauna of the play are all bound together in one large choreography.
The plot unfolds in a storybook fashion. With the quick 90 minute runtime we don't have a lot of opportunity to digest the dramatic developments; we cling to them as they whisk us from one scene to another. We see a fairy tale romance unfold from the opposing perspective. David is thrust into this world and finds himself held up as a young damsel's saviour without really understanding what he is in for, and he seems oddly amenable to the idea. As the flaws in the fairy tale image begin to show, we want to caution David away, but he is too wrapped up by that point to make an escape.
Elizabeth Nepjuk commands the stage as Natasha. I can see some of Puck in her, because she is a trickster character in her own way, albeit here her sly nature is tangled up with a truly tragic past. She provides the emotional centre of the play and some of its most spirited action. She has to ride the line of comedy and tragedy and seamlessly slips from one to the other. Every moment is filled with energy, and she keeps the action moving while playing off of Beaudry's comparatively subdued David.
Blaine Hart and Pamela Haig Bartley both take on scene-stealing roles as the scheming locals Yuri and Katrina. Hart brings a lot of weight to his role and really delivers on the dark humour. He's great with the comic antics, but also slows for sombre moments. Haig Bartley is a bit more over-the-top, embodying her off-centre character with clumsy grace. Her comedic timing is impeccable, and she truly sinks in to Katrina's mismatched socks. I'm reminded of the question she often poses to her acting students: "to what end?" That piece of advice shows, as all of her choices are really followed through. Then Darren Zimmer shows up late in the show, countering the zanier characters with a drier sort of humour, in his personality-deprived government official.
Josh Beaudry is often remembered for his colourful supporting characters, so it was a departure for me to see him in a low-key leading role. He succeeds at playing a very genuine character, and manages to add some small nuance to the general state of bewilderment that David always finds himself in. Then his final eruption right near the end is fun to watch.
My Chernobyl is kind of directionless, and I mean that as both a compliment and a criticism. As a criticism, I mean that sections of this play that are entertaining on their own are strung together in a way that doesn't achieve much. Hart and Haig Bartley have a couple dialogues at different points in the play, largely divorced from the main action. The scenes are very funny and the actors showcase great chemistry, but ultimately gives off the sense of "meanwhile in a different play". And a lot of David's trajectory is disjointed. His actual personality is hard to pinpoint. As a compliment, I mean that there is an overall tone of directionlessness that ties the plot together. We have entered a hopeless world where David appears as this possible saviour, but people have been without hope for so long they don't know how to react.
At its core, this is a very dark play for everyone involved. We see David being taken advantage of right at the beginning, but it's hard to get upset when we see the dreadful existence of the locals. They have been left behind to die by the rest of the world, and David will never know their suffering. But it's also frustrating to see them charging blindly forward in pursuit of money without considering what they will do with it. Katrina keeps talking about buying a new truck, but no amount of money she swindles appears to get her any closer to buying. Yuri articulates the problem clearly: "I always want more money. It's in my nature." They are the refuse of capitalist society, driven to desire money but far away from a place where it will do them any good.
Before I started writing this review, I spoke about the play with my good friend Torien Cafferata, and he first put me on to the idea of a Russian fairytale. The more I think about that idea, the more it seems to tie the threads of this play together. The problem with reading Grimm fairy tales in their close-to-original form is that they are so incredibly frustrating. The main characters are typically stupid and bereft of personality, stumbling their way through events to some heroic or gruesome end; the stories take weird, inexplicable twists and have sometimes incomprehensible endings that reflect back on the values of a culture totally alien to us. Taking that perspective, the disjointed nature of this play makes more sense. David is a minimalist protagonist, who begins the play on a quest to carry out the wishes of his father against all human rationality (as fairy tale characters do) and he is swept from one scene to another, tacitly accepting his circumstance, until he finds his princess. Then the fairy tale begins to unravel (it has a meltdown, if you will allow me to be crass), that veneer, for whatever it was worth, is lifted, and we find ourselves staring into the heart of the troubled culture that created the tale in the first place.
My Chernobyl has a lot of things going for it, with the talented cast and heavy themes. But it suffers from not entirely knowing what it's doing. There were ideas and commentaries in the script that could have been punched further, and character arcs that needed to be cleaned up. The direction could have darkened the comedy by a couple shades to make the grim ending less of a hairpin turn. Still, it's an entertaining, emotional ride that makes good viewing for a dreary evening.
My Chernobyl is a recent Canadian play which came out of Victoria five short years ago. It offers to provide a Canadian perspective on the nuclear disaster (sort of). Our main character is David, a nice guy Canadian who has been charged with delivering his own inheritance to a cousin in Belarus. And he's doing it, presumably because he's so nice. Soon, his nice nature gets him taken advantage of by a pair of scheming locals, and wrapped up with his old relation's comely daughter, who sees wedding bells when the rich Canadian comes knocking.
It is a peculiar play. On one hand it is a tragedy of a country in shambles with its people forgotten (and the value they place on American culture is somewhat amusing given recent events). On the other hand it is a rollicking semi-Vaudevillian comedy with a little bit of fairy tale mixed in. Our setting is the edge of the "exclusion zone" - the 30km radius around Chernobyl deemed uninhabitable. People in this area are prone to cancer but unfortunately lacking in super powers. It's as hardscrabble a life as you can imagine. So when we watch the scheming supporting characters manoeuvre for more of David's money, we do so with the knowledge that they are clawing through the dirt for survival; a classic stock crook is underscored with a real sense of tragedy. All set to a soundscape of Bryan Adams music.
Despite its basis in a real-world disaster (even more immediate now with the recent disaster in Japan), My Chernobyl maintains a whimsical feel. Scene transitions are accompanied by folk dancing interludes, where U of S acting alumna Alex Hartshorn puts her authentic Ukrainian dance skills to work keeping the stage vibrant with some beautiful choreography. When there is no dancing, we get these cartoonish scenes of "potato bandits" sneaking around the countryside. These transitions make the whole set feel alive, shifting from one place to another. And the way the actors themselves are involved in the set movement creates a cohesive feeling, like the flora and fauna of the play are all bound together in one large choreography.
The plot unfolds in a storybook fashion. With the quick 90 minute runtime we don't have a lot of opportunity to digest the dramatic developments; we cling to them as they whisk us from one scene to another. We see a fairy tale romance unfold from the opposing perspective. David is thrust into this world and finds himself held up as a young damsel's saviour without really understanding what he is in for, and he seems oddly amenable to the idea. As the flaws in the fairy tale image begin to show, we want to caution David away, but he is too wrapped up by that point to make an escape.
Elizabeth Nepjuk commands the stage as Natasha. I can see some of Puck in her, because she is a trickster character in her own way, albeit here her sly nature is tangled up with a truly tragic past. She provides the emotional centre of the play and some of its most spirited action. She has to ride the line of comedy and tragedy and seamlessly slips from one to the other. Every moment is filled with energy, and she keeps the action moving while playing off of Beaudry's comparatively subdued David.
Blaine Hart and Pamela Haig Bartley both take on scene-stealing roles as the scheming locals Yuri and Katrina. Hart brings a lot of weight to his role and really delivers on the dark humour. He's great with the comic antics, but also slows for sombre moments. Haig Bartley is a bit more over-the-top, embodying her off-centre character with clumsy grace. Her comedic timing is impeccable, and she truly sinks in to Katrina's mismatched socks. I'm reminded of the question she often poses to her acting students: "to what end?" That piece of advice shows, as all of her choices are really followed through. Then Darren Zimmer shows up late in the show, countering the zanier characters with a drier sort of humour, in his personality-deprived government official.
Josh Beaudry is often remembered for his colourful supporting characters, so it was a departure for me to see him in a low-key leading role. He succeeds at playing a very genuine character, and manages to add some small nuance to the general state of bewilderment that David always finds himself in. Then his final eruption right near the end is fun to watch.
My Chernobyl is kind of directionless, and I mean that as both a compliment and a criticism. As a criticism, I mean that sections of this play that are entertaining on their own are strung together in a way that doesn't achieve much. Hart and Haig Bartley have a couple dialogues at different points in the play, largely divorced from the main action. The scenes are very funny and the actors showcase great chemistry, but ultimately gives off the sense of "meanwhile in a different play". And a lot of David's trajectory is disjointed. His actual personality is hard to pinpoint. As a compliment, I mean that there is an overall tone of directionlessness that ties the plot together. We have entered a hopeless world where David appears as this possible saviour, but people have been without hope for so long they don't know how to react.
At its core, this is a very dark play for everyone involved. We see David being taken advantage of right at the beginning, but it's hard to get upset when we see the dreadful existence of the locals. They have been left behind to die by the rest of the world, and David will never know their suffering. But it's also frustrating to see them charging blindly forward in pursuit of money without considering what they will do with it. Katrina keeps talking about buying a new truck, but no amount of money she swindles appears to get her any closer to buying. Yuri articulates the problem clearly: "I always want more money. It's in my nature." They are the refuse of capitalist society, driven to desire money but far away from a place where it will do them any good.
Before I started writing this review, I spoke about the play with my good friend Torien Cafferata, and he first put me on to the idea of a Russian fairytale. The more I think about that idea, the more it seems to tie the threads of this play together. The problem with reading Grimm fairy tales in their close-to-original form is that they are so incredibly frustrating. The main characters are typically stupid and bereft of personality, stumbling their way through events to some heroic or gruesome end; the stories take weird, inexplicable twists and have sometimes incomprehensible endings that reflect back on the values of a culture totally alien to us. Taking that perspective, the disjointed nature of this play makes more sense. David is a minimalist protagonist, who begins the play on a quest to carry out the wishes of his father against all human rationality (as fairy tale characters do) and he is swept from one scene to another, tacitly accepting his circumstance, until he finds his princess. Then the fairy tale begins to unravel (it has a meltdown, if you will allow me to be crass), that veneer, for whatever it was worth, is lifted, and we find ourselves staring into the heart of the troubled culture that created the tale in the first place.
My Chernobyl has a lot of things going for it, with the talented cast and heavy themes. But it suffers from not entirely knowing what it's doing. There were ideas and commentaries in the script that could have been punched further, and character arcs that needed to be cleaned up. The direction could have darkened the comedy by a couple shades to make the grim ending less of a hairpin turn. Still, it's an entertaining, emotional ride that makes good viewing for a dreary evening.
Friday, 4 October 2013
Remembering Max
Tonight was going to be the launch of my new "season" of the Prairie Groundling, as it were, with my review of My Chernobyl. That will still be forthcoming shortly, but I ended up taking some time to go see the No Nos perform. It was a special occasion.
If any of you aren't aware, the No Nos are an improv troupe who have kicked around Saskatoon for several years now. I first discovered them in my second year of university, about five years ago, when they were still performing in the Off-Broadway. I was an instant fan. The whole thing was like Whose Line is it Anyway on cocaine. The cast was filled with so many talented and hilarious people, it was like learning to laugh again. Since those early nights the No Nos have bounced around quite a bit, from venue to venue like they're out of some folk tale. Every time I've come back to see a show, wherever they happen to be, I would always see Max Bembridge keeping the ship afloat.
Tonight was meant to be the opening of their new season. But to my shock, on Tuesday there came an announcement that Max had died, and that this show would be a special memorial to him.
I never knew Max, personally. But through what I saw of him through the No Nos, and the occasions I saw him outside, I came to an understanding of the sort of person he was. He was endlessly enthusiastic, charismatic, and funny. He always thanked me for coming out to the show, and he seemed to remember me, even though I could spend months between attending performances. I always saw him running like a workhorse behind the scenes to get everything ready, right up until the minute the show started, and then he would burst out onstage, brimming with energy. I know the word "vivacious" is mainly applied to aging female celebrities, but all it really means is full of life, and I think we can agree that Max was vivacious.
I wasn't sure what to expect from tonight's show; I don't think anyone was. In part, it was a regular show, with the familiar improv games, and despite the mood all the performers came out swinging. But in between sketches, members of the cast took the stage to share their own memories of Max. Heartwrenching, heartwarming, and also really funny. There were plenty of tears shed, both by the cast and by the audience members packed into the makeshift auditorium at Le Relais (a fire code or two may have been broken). The show was not an elegy. As emotional as it was, I wouldn't call it sad. Above all it was a celebration of Max's life and this group and would not and could not exist if it hadn't been for him. And I suppose there was no better send-off for Max than raucous laughter from all the people who loved and admired him.
This is not how I had imagined starting off a new season of this blog. But here we are. I've had to think about what we're really doing here, about Saskatoon theatre. The term "theatre community" gets tossed around a lot, by me and by others. Tonight really gave me a clearer understanding of what that idea actually means. We are a community, all of us connected. Seeing the crowd come out for Max it made me think about how each member of this community has such a profound effect on everyone else, even outside of what they do in the actual theatre. We're a family, and working in our own backyard like this brings us all close together: closer than we realise until we lose someone. Even those of us who didn't know Max feel like we know him, in a small way, at least.
Honestly, I didn't know why I started this blog. The past year I've been testing the enthusiasm of other people about it, and my own dedication in keeping it running. So far the former has outstripped the latter. But that's going to change. Because looking at recent events I finally understand what I'm doing here. I'm not a reviewer; I'm a historian. This whole theatre community is such a fantastic beast, filled with comedy and tragedy, and I'm watching over it. I don't know if that's necessary, but for the moment it's where I belong.
Now, before I say goodbye to you all for now, and before I say goodbye to Max forever, I'll share my favourite No Nos scene right here.
Max and Derek in "Hobo Feeder"
So long, Max. I'm happy for almost knowing you.
If any of you aren't aware, the No Nos are an improv troupe who have kicked around Saskatoon for several years now. I first discovered them in my second year of university, about five years ago, when they were still performing in the Off-Broadway. I was an instant fan. The whole thing was like Whose Line is it Anyway on cocaine. The cast was filled with so many talented and hilarious people, it was like learning to laugh again. Since those early nights the No Nos have bounced around quite a bit, from venue to venue like they're out of some folk tale. Every time I've come back to see a show, wherever they happen to be, I would always see Max Bembridge keeping the ship afloat.
Tonight was meant to be the opening of their new season. But to my shock, on Tuesday there came an announcement that Max had died, and that this show would be a special memorial to him.
I never knew Max, personally. But through what I saw of him through the No Nos, and the occasions I saw him outside, I came to an understanding of the sort of person he was. He was endlessly enthusiastic, charismatic, and funny. He always thanked me for coming out to the show, and he seemed to remember me, even though I could spend months between attending performances. I always saw him running like a workhorse behind the scenes to get everything ready, right up until the minute the show started, and then he would burst out onstage, brimming with energy. I know the word "vivacious" is mainly applied to aging female celebrities, but all it really means is full of life, and I think we can agree that Max was vivacious.
I wasn't sure what to expect from tonight's show; I don't think anyone was. In part, it was a regular show, with the familiar improv games, and despite the mood all the performers came out swinging. But in between sketches, members of the cast took the stage to share their own memories of Max. Heartwrenching, heartwarming, and also really funny. There were plenty of tears shed, both by the cast and by the audience members packed into the makeshift auditorium at Le Relais (a fire code or two may have been broken). The show was not an elegy. As emotional as it was, I wouldn't call it sad. Above all it was a celebration of Max's life and this group and would not and could not exist if it hadn't been for him. And I suppose there was no better send-off for Max than raucous laughter from all the people who loved and admired him.
This is not how I had imagined starting off a new season of this blog. But here we are. I've had to think about what we're really doing here, about Saskatoon theatre. The term "theatre community" gets tossed around a lot, by me and by others. Tonight really gave me a clearer understanding of what that idea actually means. We are a community, all of us connected. Seeing the crowd come out for Max it made me think about how each member of this community has such a profound effect on everyone else, even outside of what they do in the actual theatre. We're a family, and working in our own backyard like this brings us all close together: closer than we realise until we lose someone. Even those of us who didn't know Max feel like we know him, in a small way, at least.
Honestly, I didn't know why I started this blog. The past year I've been testing the enthusiasm of other people about it, and my own dedication in keeping it running. So far the former has outstripped the latter. But that's going to change. Because looking at recent events I finally understand what I'm doing here. I'm not a reviewer; I'm a historian. This whole theatre community is such a fantastic beast, filled with comedy and tragedy, and I'm watching over it. I don't know if that's necessary, but for the moment it's where I belong.
Now, before I say goodbye to you all for now, and before I say goodbye to Max forever, I'll share my favourite No Nos scene right here.
Max and Derek in "Hobo Feeder"
So long, Max. I'm happy for almost knowing you.
Thursday, 8 August 2013
Fringe 2013 - Day 4
Bottome's Dream (Embrace Theatre, SK)
Bottome's Dream is more ambitious than any Fringe show has a right to be - which makes it all the more impressive how well the play succeeds. It is in the league of Two Corpses Go Dancing: a play which defies the conventions of its medium by aiming for the spectacular, and hits all the right notes along the way.
A Shakespearean production with a cast of seven: it's not hard to figure out that Charlie Peters is the only person in Saskatoon who could possibly have pulled this performance together. I can only marvel at the masochism which leads him to tackle these challenges, but I can't deny the results. Bottome's Dream is a fantastic piece of theatre which should appeal to both hard-core Bardists and playhouse newcomers.
This play delivers both a skilful reimagining of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and a fun slice of justice for all those of us who have sat through a bad romantic comedy, wishing the bland leads would disappear and the movie could be about the quirky supporting characters. Peters does just that; he takes Midsummer and removes what the pedantic and tedious among us might call "the main plot". Instead, it focuses entirely on the "rude mechanicals" mounting their own production of Pyramus and Thisbe for the court of Theseus, and the goings-on of the Faerie kingdom. Whether it is a virtue of Charlie or an aspersion on Will, the play doesn't feel like it is missing anything.
If you're in need of a refresher, the plot follows four members of the working class in Athens who get the idea to perform a romantic tragedy for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. But while they rehearse in the forest they end up treading into the crossfire of a feud between the faerie king Oberon and his queen Titania. Oberon hatches a scheme to teach his wife a lesson by slipping her a love potion and having her fall for a man with a donkey's head. But first he needs to find a man and transform his head into a donkey's, and that is where our dashing leading man Bottom finds himself unfortunately entangled.
Of all the vile slanders that have been hurled at Charlie Peters over the years, no one has ever accused him of not getting Shakespeare. He reaches deep into the intestines of the play and pulls out those little icons that most people don't think about. The question of why so much of Midsummer is dedicated to these day-labourers putting on a very bad production of a tragedy is a valid one which Professor Kumaran never gave much airtime in my Shakespeare class. It's a two-pronged satire. One, it seems the Bard was taking a potshot at slapdash country performances, but also poking fun at censorship, reflected in Bottom's concerns about offending the ladies in the audience. Peters builds up the satirical elements with the absolutely ludicrous performance depicted onstage, but he adds another level. The would-be players in this play are so earnest in their efforts, even as we watch them cobble together what barely amounts to a middle-school level production, we can't help but admire the tenacity of the rude mechanicals and their endearing dedication to performing theatre, even if they don't understand it. I think there may be a bit of self deprecation here.
Casting two of the players as females injects some welcome sexual tension into the mix. Emma Thorpe as the put-upon Snout, rejected as female lead, is adorable. She displays unfailing good intention but a general lack of grace and intellect; her sunny facial expression and sweet innocence evokes sympathy from the audience as she is frequently put down. Chris Donlevy as Flute (playing Thisbe) has a natural gift for Shakespearean dialogue, but in this particular instance his main strength is his capacity for slapstick, with potentially dangerous flailing and a lot of quick facial expressions; plus, his woman voice while playing Thisbe is really something else. Donovan Scheirer is larger than life as Bottom, the unfortunate man who finds himself with the head of an ass (though not displeased about having a faerie queen all into him). His cockiness and bravado owns the stage, and his wide-eyed bewilderment at why everyone runs from him post-transformation creates a brilliant comedic contrast. With his expression he always makes the dialogue land. Kate Herriot is Quince, the feisty director who nevertheless has a schoolgirl crush on Bottom. I can't overstate just how endearing she is, from her general tough girl persona to her tearful lament of Bottom's disappearance to her fiery commitment to putting on theatre whatever the cost.
Local theatre staples Matt Josdal and Cheryl Jack do double-duty as Oberon and Titania and Theseus and Hippolyta. They had trouble injecting vitality into the lengthy monologues the faerie couple exchanges toward the beginning of the play, but as it went on their emotions bloomed and they really dug into the petty bickering and eventual reconciliation between them. Plus, their experience in the field really helps lend them the booming dominance needed for playing the immortals. Then as Theseus and Hippolyta they got to kick back and have fun by spending the final scene cracking jokes about the play the artisans are putting on; the ease of their conversation helped to set the atmosphere.
And as much as it seems absurd to choose a stand-out element in this production, Elizabeth Nepjuk as Puck takes it. I have not really seen her act before (her previous major role was in the version of Into the Woods that I didn't see), but she was captivating the moment she came out onstage. I was immediately struck by someone who would be just as comfortable in Vaudeville as on HBO. Her embodiment of the character was amazing, with her light-footed physicality bouncing her around the stage like a sprite. If ever there is a dull moment onstage, one only needs to find her and her facial expression will be radiating 1500 Watts from wherever she is.
And now it occurs to me that I haven't done nearly enough to describe how eye-wateringly gut-tighteningly funny Bottome's Dream is. Every line from the Shakespearean text which could possibly be considered funny is cranked up to 11. It's a testament both to the understanding of the play and the phenomenal chemistry of the cast. Then the final scene, the climactic performance of the tragedy, is a melange of slapstick, dry wit, and half a dozen other types of comedy I don't even have a name for into one spectacular explosion of hilarity. There are not many things in this world that have made me laugh quite that much.
And because everything else in this play wasn't complicated enough, Peters also incorporated live sound effects (remember what I said about the masochism?). The actors make full use of their talents by operating a number of instruments to make the whole symphony of sound effects offstage, and sometimes onstage. I spent quite a while trying to figure out where this strange trumpeting sound was coming from, then I discovered it was coming from Kate Herriot's lips.
This is a play that gets everything right, and possibly even gets a few things it didn't even think of right by accident. On one hand, it won't knock Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan off its pedestal, but on the other hand, that's a really fucking stupid observation to make. This is one of those shows that transcends the Fringe; transcends Shakespeare, if I may be so bold, because after this I don't think I could sit through a proper performance of Midsummer again.
Best of the Fringe? Yes. Best of all Fringes? ... No, that's still Two Corpses Go Dancing, but that's another discussion. The point is, Bottome's Dream is one of those things you just have to see. Seriously. See it.
OK, that last review was a bit exhausting. This one will be short.
Unpossible! (Travis Bernhardt, BC)
One day in the not too distant future, the human race will discover that sorcerers have been living among us. And we will wonder how they could brazenly flaunt their abilities right in front of us for so long without us being any the wiser. Travis Bernhardt is one such wizard.
Unpossible! begins much in the way you would expect from a magic show. There are fancy tablecloths, a deck of cards, some audience volunteers. It starts off simple. Oh, yeah, that trick is pretty obvious. Oh, well he just did that while I wasn't looking. But I was looking. Wasn't I? Oh, there's clearly a trap door in the top of that table. Oh, that's easy. He just taps the deck of cards and then ... I don't know. He might have done something with magnets on that one. I think I saw it go up his sleeve, but I'm not sure what sort of gravity manipulation was required to get it up there. OK, how the fuck did that deck of cards get in his pocket? It was in his opposite hand literally one second ago. IT'S UNDER THE GLASS OF WATER??? HE DIDN'T EVEN GO NEAR THERE!
But Travis Bernhardt isn't just a magician; he's also a gifted comedian. He charms his audience, using self-depreciation to lull us into a false sense of security before blind-siding us with something crazy. He also strikes me as a man of science, caring not just about the ostentatious display of magic but also of the subtle math behind it. It makes me think that manipulating numbers is as much part of his act as manipulating objects. And manipulating people - that's a whole other story.
A word of warning: Unpossible! requires patience. It starts out as a typical magic show, but the middle section of it gets quite strange. It focuses on audience volunteers doing things that don't make a lot of sense and which seem to be going wrong a lot. But keep focused, because all will be revealed in the end. The final moments of the show will make you utter a "Whoa" worthy of Keanu Reeves.
Because the truth is, it's not a show of magic tricks. It's just one magic trick.
Bottome's Dream is more ambitious than any Fringe show has a right to be - which makes it all the more impressive how well the play succeeds. It is in the league of Two Corpses Go Dancing: a play which defies the conventions of its medium by aiming for the spectacular, and hits all the right notes along the way.
A Shakespearean production with a cast of seven: it's not hard to figure out that Charlie Peters is the only person in Saskatoon who could possibly have pulled this performance together. I can only marvel at the masochism which leads him to tackle these challenges, but I can't deny the results. Bottome's Dream is a fantastic piece of theatre which should appeal to both hard-core Bardists and playhouse newcomers.
This play delivers both a skilful reimagining of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and a fun slice of justice for all those of us who have sat through a bad romantic comedy, wishing the bland leads would disappear and the movie could be about the quirky supporting characters. Peters does just that; he takes Midsummer and removes what the pedantic and tedious among us might call "the main plot". Instead, it focuses entirely on the "rude mechanicals" mounting their own production of Pyramus and Thisbe for the court of Theseus, and the goings-on of the Faerie kingdom. Whether it is a virtue of Charlie or an aspersion on Will, the play doesn't feel like it is missing anything.
If you're in need of a refresher, the plot follows four members of the working class in Athens who get the idea to perform a romantic tragedy for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. But while they rehearse in the forest they end up treading into the crossfire of a feud between the faerie king Oberon and his queen Titania. Oberon hatches a scheme to teach his wife a lesson by slipping her a love potion and having her fall for a man with a donkey's head. But first he needs to find a man and transform his head into a donkey's, and that is where our dashing leading man Bottom finds himself unfortunately entangled.
Of all the vile slanders that have been hurled at Charlie Peters over the years, no one has ever accused him of not getting Shakespeare. He reaches deep into the intestines of the play and pulls out those little icons that most people don't think about. The question of why so much of Midsummer is dedicated to these day-labourers putting on a very bad production of a tragedy is a valid one which Professor Kumaran never gave much airtime in my Shakespeare class. It's a two-pronged satire. One, it seems the Bard was taking a potshot at slapdash country performances, but also poking fun at censorship, reflected in Bottom's concerns about offending the ladies in the audience. Peters builds up the satirical elements with the absolutely ludicrous performance depicted onstage, but he adds another level. The would-be players in this play are so earnest in their efforts, even as we watch them cobble together what barely amounts to a middle-school level production, we can't help but admire the tenacity of the rude mechanicals and their endearing dedication to performing theatre, even if they don't understand it. I think there may be a bit of self deprecation here.
Casting two of the players as females injects some welcome sexual tension into the mix. Emma Thorpe as the put-upon Snout, rejected as female lead, is adorable. She displays unfailing good intention but a general lack of grace and intellect; her sunny facial expression and sweet innocence evokes sympathy from the audience as she is frequently put down. Chris Donlevy as Flute (playing Thisbe) has a natural gift for Shakespearean dialogue, but in this particular instance his main strength is his capacity for slapstick, with potentially dangerous flailing and a lot of quick facial expressions; plus, his woman voice while playing Thisbe is really something else. Donovan Scheirer is larger than life as Bottom, the unfortunate man who finds himself with the head of an ass (though not displeased about having a faerie queen all into him). His cockiness and bravado owns the stage, and his wide-eyed bewilderment at why everyone runs from him post-transformation creates a brilliant comedic contrast. With his expression he always makes the dialogue land. Kate Herriot is Quince, the feisty director who nevertheless has a schoolgirl crush on Bottom. I can't overstate just how endearing she is, from her general tough girl persona to her tearful lament of Bottom's disappearance to her fiery commitment to putting on theatre whatever the cost.
Local theatre staples Matt Josdal and Cheryl Jack do double-duty as Oberon and Titania and Theseus and Hippolyta. They had trouble injecting vitality into the lengthy monologues the faerie couple exchanges toward the beginning of the play, but as it went on their emotions bloomed and they really dug into the petty bickering and eventual reconciliation between them. Plus, their experience in the field really helps lend them the booming dominance needed for playing the immortals. Then as Theseus and Hippolyta they got to kick back and have fun by spending the final scene cracking jokes about the play the artisans are putting on; the ease of their conversation helped to set the atmosphere.
And as much as it seems absurd to choose a stand-out element in this production, Elizabeth Nepjuk as Puck takes it. I have not really seen her act before (her previous major role was in the version of Into the Woods that I didn't see), but she was captivating the moment she came out onstage. I was immediately struck by someone who would be just as comfortable in Vaudeville as on HBO. Her embodiment of the character was amazing, with her light-footed physicality bouncing her around the stage like a sprite. If ever there is a dull moment onstage, one only needs to find her and her facial expression will be radiating 1500 Watts from wherever she is.
And now it occurs to me that I haven't done nearly enough to describe how eye-wateringly gut-tighteningly funny Bottome's Dream is. Every line from the Shakespearean text which could possibly be considered funny is cranked up to 11. It's a testament both to the understanding of the play and the phenomenal chemistry of the cast. Then the final scene, the climactic performance of the tragedy, is a melange of slapstick, dry wit, and half a dozen other types of comedy I don't even have a name for into one spectacular explosion of hilarity. There are not many things in this world that have made me laugh quite that much.
And because everything else in this play wasn't complicated enough, Peters also incorporated live sound effects (remember what I said about the masochism?). The actors make full use of their talents by operating a number of instruments to make the whole symphony of sound effects offstage, and sometimes onstage. I spent quite a while trying to figure out where this strange trumpeting sound was coming from, then I discovered it was coming from Kate Herriot's lips.
This is a play that gets everything right, and possibly even gets a few things it didn't even think of right by accident. On one hand, it won't knock Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan off its pedestal, but on the other hand, that's a really fucking stupid observation to make. This is one of those shows that transcends the Fringe; transcends Shakespeare, if I may be so bold, because after this I don't think I could sit through a proper performance of Midsummer again.
Best of the Fringe? Yes. Best of all Fringes? ... No, that's still Two Corpses Go Dancing, but that's another discussion. The point is, Bottome's Dream is one of those things you just have to see. Seriously. See it.
OK, that last review was a bit exhausting. This one will be short.
Unpossible! (Travis Bernhardt, BC)
One day in the not too distant future, the human race will discover that sorcerers have been living among us. And we will wonder how they could brazenly flaunt their abilities right in front of us for so long without us being any the wiser. Travis Bernhardt is one such wizard.
Unpossible! begins much in the way you would expect from a magic show. There are fancy tablecloths, a deck of cards, some audience volunteers. It starts off simple. Oh, yeah, that trick is pretty obvious. Oh, well he just did that while I wasn't looking. But I was looking. Wasn't I? Oh, there's clearly a trap door in the top of that table. Oh, that's easy. He just taps the deck of cards and then ... I don't know. He might have done something with magnets on that one. I think I saw it go up his sleeve, but I'm not sure what sort of gravity manipulation was required to get it up there. OK, how the fuck did that deck of cards get in his pocket? It was in his opposite hand literally one second ago. IT'S UNDER THE GLASS OF WATER??? HE DIDN'T EVEN GO NEAR THERE!
But Travis Bernhardt isn't just a magician; he's also a gifted comedian. He charms his audience, using self-depreciation to lull us into a false sense of security before blind-siding us with something crazy. He also strikes me as a man of science, caring not just about the ostentatious display of magic but also of the subtle math behind it. It makes me think that manipulating numbers is as much part of his act as manipulating objects. And manipulating people - that's a whole other story.
A word of warning: Unpossible! requires patience. It starts out as a typical magic show, but the middle section of it gets quite strange. It focuses on audience volunteers doing things that don't make a lot of sense and which seem to be going wrong a lot. But keep focused, because all will be revealed in the end. The final moments of the show will make you utter a "Whoa" worthy of Keanu Reeves.
Because the truth is, it's not a show of magic tricks. It's just one magic trick.
Wednesday, 7 August 2013
Fringe 2013 - Day 3
Hot Thespian Action (Hot Thespian Action, MB)
I admit it, I was intrigued by the title, and their scandalously tasteful posters.
Hot Thespian Action is a sketch comedy troupe out of Winnipeg, where people desperately need something to laugh about (just kidding ;)). Sketch comedy is a delicate art, plagued by a culture of "hit or miss". But when preparing a Fringe show and not a weekly TV program, we can afford our auteurs the time to really focus their energy and craft the best show possible. As such, HTA delivers a raucous 55 minutes of non-stop comedy mayhem.
There is a touch of classic SNL in here, but it is definitely born of a modern age. One standout sketch, "W.H.A.A.T.T.H.E." tackles the problem of people over 50 who can't use any of their technology. Maybe it's a bit of a cheap shot, but it's hilarious, and more than slightly relateable. The sketches they have are diverse. Some are high concept, like a woman who gets transported into her own purse and faces the miscellaneae she left abandoned there. Others revolve around one gag which they absolutely nail, like three robot girls talking like Jersey Shore bitches in Stephen Hawking voices - a shallow concept, maybe, but also one of the funniest things I've ever experienced.
Sometimes, though, it's not clear what kind of show they want to do. With some sketches they push the envelope a little bit, but with others they shy away from being too edgy when they could have benefited from it. HTA is at its best when not falling back on stereotypes. A game show titled "Is He Gay?" is funny, but feels a bit 90s. Not that there is anything mean-spirited about it, it felt slightly off-putting.
The five cast members have great chemistry with one another (they have to, judging by their posters), and they nail their scenes with excellent timing and a combination of whacky personalities and charismatic straight characters. There is nothing particularly deep I can read into this one, but it delivers what it promises: a one hour comedy extravaganza. Definitely worth seeing unless you hate happiness.
Tales from the Twilight (Erik de Waal, South Africa)
In four years at the Saskatoon Fringe I had never seen an Erik de Waal show, even though he'd been a major icon of the festival throughout that time. When I saw that this year he was performing a collection of horror stories along with his usual folktales, I saw it as time to correct my mistake.
He begins the show by launching straight into a retelling of Poe's "The Telltale Heart". The first minute or so I was confused until I realised what the story was. When that concluded he properly introduced himself. He continued with a traditional South African (but really Irish) ghost story, then into a North American traditional by way of Mark Twain, and finally into a retelling of "The Monkey's Paw". Interspersed between these were snippets of his own childhood growing up in a haunted house. These small anecdotes capture the real essence of the horror story. I have no idea if they were completely made up, embellished, or stone cold truth. And it doesn't matter. It is what it is and it makes a good story.
What I had to remind myself is that de Waal is a storyteller and not a storymaker. He has a tremendous gift for storytelling, working the timbre of his voice like an orchestra to excite the audience and build suspense. He alters his physicality to embody the character; this is particularly noticeable during "The Telltale Heart" when his creeping, slippery movements build a nightmarish aura around him, in contrast with protestations about how sane he is. At times de Waal steps down from the stage and walks through the audience, drifting in and out, applying subtle pressure to those audience members he moves past while the drama builds. One complaint I had was his frequent repetition of certain phrases, with the same accompanying gestural movement. It's a technique that probably works better with the African Folktales audience than it does here. But that issue aside, the man has a great talent for building atmosphere using only his voice and movements.
It was disappointing for me that half the show was dedicated to telling stories I already knew, but de Waal is about the telling, not the making. And in that respect, he does exceedingly well.
I admit it, I was intrigued by the title, and their scandalously tasteful posters.
Hot Thespian Action is a sketch comedy troupe out of Winnipeg, where people desperately need something to laugh about (just kidding ;)). Sketch comedy is a delicate art, plagued by a culture of "hit or miss". But when preparing a Fringe show and not a weekly TV program, we can afford our auteurs the time to really focus their energy and craft the best show possible. As such, HTA delivers a raucous 55 minutes of non-stop comedy mayhem.
There is a touch of classic SNL in here, but it is definitely born of a modern age. One standout sketch, "W.H.A.A.T.T.H.E." tackles the problem of people over 50 who can't use any of their technology. Maybe it's a bit of a cheap shot, but it's hilarious, and more than slightly relateable. The sketches they have are diverse. Some are high concept, like a woman who gets transported into her own purse and faces the miscellaneae she left abandoned there. Others revolve around one gag which they absolutely nail, like three robot girls talking like Jersey Shore bitches in Stephen Hawking voices - a shallow concept, maybe, but also one of the funniest things I've ever experienced.
Sometimes, though, it's not clear what kind of show they want to do. With some sketches they push the envelope a little bit, but with others they shy away from being too edgy when they could have benefited from it. HTA is at its best when not falling back on stereotypes. A game show titled "Is He Gay?" is funny, but feels a bit 90s. Not that there is anything mean-spirited about it, it felt slightly off-putting.
The five cast members have great chemistry with one another (they have to, judging by their posters), and they nail their scenes with excellent timing and a combination of whacky personalities and charismatic straight characters. There is nothing particularly deep I can read into this one, but it delivers what it promises: a one hour comedy extravaganza. Definitely worth seeing unless you hate happiness.
Tales from the Twilight (Erik de Waal, South Africa)
In four years at the Saskatoon Fringe I had never seen an Erik de Waal show, even though he'd been a major icon of the festival throughout that time. When I saw that this year he was performing a collection of horror stories along with his usual folktales, I saw it as time to correct my mistake.
He begins the show by launching straight into a retelling of Poe's "The Telltale Heart". The first minute or so I was confused until I realised what the story was. When that concluded he properly introduced himself. He continued with a traditional South African (but really Irish) ghost story, then into a North American traditional by way of Mark Twain, and finally into a retelling of "The Monkey's Paw". Interspersed between these were snippets of his own childhood growing up in a haunted house. These small anecdotes capture the real essence of the horror story. I have no idea if they were completely made up, embellished, or stone cold truth. And it doesn't matter. It is what it is and it makes a good story.
What I had to remind myself is that de Waal is a storyteller and not a storymaker. He has a tremendous gift for storytelling, working the timbre of his voice like an orchestra to excite the audience and build suspense. He alters his physicality to embody the character; this is particularly noticeable during "The Telltale Heart" when his creeping, slippery movements build a nightmarish aura around him, in contrast with protestations about how sane he is. At times de Waal steps down from the stage and walks through the audience, drifting in and out, applying subtle pressure to those audience members he moves past while the drama builds. One complaint I had was his frequent repetition of certain phrases, with the same accompanying gestural movement. It's a technique that probably works better with the African Folktales audience than it does here. But that issue aside, the man has a great talent for building atmosphere using only his voice and movements.
It was disappointing for me that half the show was dedicated to telling stories I already knew, but de Waal is about the telling, not the making. And in that respect, he does exceedingly well.
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