Review: This Lime Tree Bower

Gray Powell, Matthew Gorman and Anthony MacMahon (photo credit: Scott Gorman)

Giving the finger to what you have

by Jason Booker

The Toronto premiere of this early Conor McPherson work features actress Sarah Dodd in her directorial debut. The fact that Dodd comes from a thespian background clearly shines through since the performances she helped create are fantastic against the uninspired design elements. 

A compelling series of monologues, This Lime Tree Bower features three young Irishmen: Joe, the schoolboy who remains vulnerable and curious, Frank, his older brother who shelters his family and provides in the family’s chip shop, and Ray, the devil-may-care philosophy professor. These men will see things they never wanted to, lust after things they can’t have and give the finger to what they’ve got. Without consciously knowing it, the characters all seem to want but have no idea of where to go. And maybe that’s part of the problem of the show. Unlike Terminus (selling out at the Royal Alex, another monologue-based Irish show), This Lime Tree Bower is told in past tense, the tale never becomes immediate or urgent and doesn’t quite justify why these characters needed to be seen or heard by the audience. While the production contains strong performances – also heavily accented – nothing else in the production (and possibly even in the script) demands attention, especially at this moment in time.

Review: Terminus

Maev Beaty (photo credit: Josie Di Luzio)

Apparitions at the Royal Alex
by Jason Booker

Outside the March’s production of Terminus transforms into a ghost story told round the campfire.  Staged with the audience seated on the deck of the Royal Alexandra Theatre, the show is a wall of text that awakens and arouses audience members, entertaining them with gruesome characters, unnerving plotting and insinuating imagery. 

With a strong concept from director Mitchell Cushman, Terminus is expertly staged and wonderfully unique.  Cushman takes up the challenge of Mark O’Rowe’s script, maintaining that storytelling comes first, though this tale is anything but family-friendly.  Audience members are pelted with crude but real language and situations that are fanciful but graphic, like the one involving entrails.  The unflinching dialogue, written in a rap prose that rhymes but isn’t precise or metered, slams into the audience’s ear, particularly because of the Irish accents the actors acquire for the show.  There are moments when the barrage of language is almost more pleasant to hear than the specific words – these rhythms are so lyrical yet tricky to deliver and ultimately profound.  The art isn’t always the tale being told (so often the case with ghost stories) but in the method of delivery – and this one is a hit.

Review: ByoLogic Retreat

Infecting the Audience

by Jason Booker

An ongoing experiment in immersive theatre, ZED.TO created ByoLogyc, the story of a company with too much ambition and a controversial approach to healthcare.  After creating a new drug, ByoRenew was introduced to VIPs at the Toronto Fringe Festival (where this ingenious interactive piece won the Innovation prize).  Shortly thereafter, hackers infiltrated the company, tampered with the drug, overran their systems and mined the data to create a virus that has been unleashed on Toronto, as seen through their website, Twitter feeds, Scotiabank’s Nuit Blanche and other arts events over the summer and early autumn.  Now, with the infected rates rising, ByoLogyc has created the climactic Retreat at the Brickworks.  Retreat is intended to save audiences from impending doom, offering hope, a cure and possibly the identity of the hackers known only as EXE.

Review: Obaaberima

(photo credit: Jeremy Mimnagh)

In Between Everything

by Jason Booker

A new play by a new performer.  What to expect?  Is it a version of their life or total fiction?  Will it be brilliant or disastrous?  Will one side of the performer-writer be stronger than the other?  Or will it be all about finding a balance, living in between?

Obaaberima by Tawiah M’Carthy is one of those plays that strives to be in between everything. 

Agyeman, born in Ghana and on the eve of his release from a Canadian prison, introduces himself, orange prison jumpsuit half-on, half-off, posing at extreme angles and staring defiantly at audience members.  The play transitions to tell how he got there from an eight-year-old self slipping into his mother’s dress and high heels while left at home alone to now, following him through the schoolyard bullying he encounters, the local tailor who rescues him from a beating and encourages the young Agyeman to be true to himself.  Punctiliously dropping in on the character every few years as he develops, Agyeman gradually meets other men, falls in love and moves to Canada to train as a lawyer. 

Review: A Thousand Words (SummerWorks)

Clinton Walker (photo credit: Shira Leuchter)

Picture Perfect

by Jason Booker

Nothing in this review can capture the essence of A Thousand Words.  Only an image will do.

Taking its title from the cliché, A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words – which it debunks the origin of during the captivating opening monologue – this play is efficient and effective.  Staged using a burlap backdrop with projections and some utilitarian wooden chairs, the four actors involved with the show weave such a compelling tale that the audience remains riveted.

Well-paced and thoughtful, A Thousand Words catches us off-guard then challenges what you think you already know. Expediently and cleverly written and directed by Chris Hanratty, the piece tells the story of three Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and what happens when photos surface online that call into question the actions of those soldiers while guarding a checkpoint.  Adding to the dilemma, two of the soldiers are deceased, the images are leaked anonymously onto a blog that criticises the military and a legal inquiry must be undertaken.

Reviews: Wondermart / Purge (Live Art, SummerWorks)

Mercuriali

Live Art at SummerWorks: Have an Experience

by Jason Booker

Wondermart:

A two-person podplay (one of a pair in this year’s festival) in which a guerilla narrative is created to have the participants explore a chain supermarket. For those that do not know, a podplay is a pre-recorded art piece created by Silvia Mercuriali for an audience to listen to while experiencing the piece, often exploring a location or neighbourhood.  Wondermart questions the commodification of food and the aesthetics of commercialism – why such cold fluorescent lighting or full shelves of product, sitting right at the edge, labels facing out? A fun experience with a partner or a chance to meet a stranger, this “Live Art” – as the festival has dubbed it – deals with the anonymity of being present in a controlled public space intended for browsing and consumption, as the participants go about unnoticed, sometimes observing those around them, before having the surveillance cameras pointed out too.  Highly recommended to change your perspective. Performed daily for two people at a time at half-hour intervals.

Review: Huff (SummerWorks)

this true downer of a tale unfolds with a dead mother, a self-involved stepmother, a neglectful alcoholic father, a sexually obsessed older brother with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome as well as the relatively neutral narrating middle brother and the addicted younger brother, huffing gas and Lysol

when people become punchlines

by Jason Booker

A meandering, overlong monologue without message or moral, Huff is predictable, self-indulgent and a tour-de-force of stand-up-comedy style drama. Cliff Cardinal, the writer and performer, plays over twenty roles in the show including every member of a family of eight (if you include their dog), the children’s teacher and a personification of “Smell” (don’t ask). Using stereotyped characters, Cardinal portrays these people in the worst possible light and fails to make anyone sympathetic, other than the two school-aged younger brothers. These are not people an audience roots for, nor do they get many laughs.

Review: Haunted (SummerWorks)

(photo credit: Samya Kullab)

Strong performances looking for a stronger conclusion

by Jason Booker

Watching friends and loved ones deal with death is challenging in real life. Watching a play about it rarely easier. Haunted, a piece written and directed by Daniel Karasik, deals with the death of Dad a year before: Mom tries moving on and restarting her love life while daughter, Sarah, copes with painter’s block (a lack of inspiration). Mom turns to Judaism and David the Rabbi, while Sarah brushes off the comforting analysis of her scientist girlfriend.

Many of the two person scenes work well since Karasik has a great ear for dialogue and has created some interesting characters and surprising situations, though the choices always seem believable from these people. The initial scene crackles along (somewhat too fast) but the audience soon catches up.

Review: Ajax (por nobody) (SummerWorks)

A Tango With the Crowd
by Jason Booker

 “There aren't any more bullets,” shouts one character – earning one of the funniest moments of the night. Ajax (por nobody) proves that isn’t quite true. Within the first four scenes, the play deals with polyamory, bestiality, incest, homoeroticism, bulimia, genitalia, disability and pornography – the show casts its net far and wide for subject matter, often hoping to offend and provoke. However, it also manages to find a funny way to bring all these issues to the surface – assuming you have a macabre sense of humour.

Review: I, Animal (Summerworks)

MacIvor's Beasts

by Jason Booker

Even an experienced pro, skilled at hitting the mark, sometimes misses the target. In one of his latest, Daniel MacIvor creates three solo shows that are loosely linked together by some unnecessary and obvious animal symbolism (a dog, a cat and a horse respectively), a similar closing line (more on that later) and a lack of anything happening. Instead of making these three people have some issue to decide or a conflict to resolve before the audience, MacIvor has bestowed them with inaction: a narration of the past events and only pieces of their backstories as they jump about in time and location without any clear reference points. 

Review: Pornstar (Fringe)

by Jason Booker

From Chris Craddock, creator of BASH’d and Boygroove, comes Pornstar, a riotous hit.  Amy Lee as Esther, a librarian secretly filmed having sex by a former boyfriend, receives an email informing her that she has been nominated for an award as Amateur Porn Performer of the Year and is invited to the San Francisco ceremony. Naturally this comes as quite a shock, especially since Sharon, her evangelical mother – played by the quietly amusing Lynne Griffin with many of the show’s best lines – now promotes the radical Tea Party. Toss in Clarice (Sarah Mennell) - a sex advice columnist who has been recently dumped, who recognizes Esther as Sharon’s daughter - and political satire, lesbianism, dancing and gunplay ensue. The show cannot be adequately summarized and made to sound funny, because the material – while quite zany – is really quite serious and topical yet Craddock and director Bryon Laviolette have found the humour to keep the audience entertained. The quirkiest of all these narrative threads is the deceased Kate, Esther’s sister, who tells of life in Hell.  Heather Marie Annis brings life to Kate but not purpose; the mellower moments she provides are welcome and tie into the script towards the end but languish during the more raucous moments of the script. The design of the show is simple, with just a few onstage costume changes, great sound cues and some props that truly earn their giggles. I challenge anyone not to be rolling in the aisles during Esther’s Oh God speech – this performance is one of the best at the Festival. Do not miss this adult comedy, just don’t.

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Review: Antigone (Fringe)

by Jason Booker

Bringing relevance to an old Greek story can be challenging – but is possible. This Antigone, presented by Soup Can Theatre from a forty-year-old translation by David Grene (which hardly makes it current), attempts that updating by overlaying references to the Occupy movement of last Fall and the G20 protests and response into the production. However, instead of incorporating those themes into the piece, the allusions often feel too brief and anachronistic, only truly manifesting in the chicken-wire fence dragged about the stage and some beautiful choreography involving police barricades and detaining procedures.  Antigone – for those not in the know – is a play by Sophocles about the titular young woman whose two brothers have both been killed during a recent war, although due to the fact one fought against the local authority, they will not allow him to be buried in sacred grounds. In this sizeable cast of twelve, the actors are wildly uneven.  Some appear to be lost in the archaic rhythms of the text, unclear as to what the lines mean, while others needed sharper direction on how to project and emphasize the key points.  Meanwhile, there are a few like the majestic Thomas Gough as Creon, who nicely acquit themselves from the confusion onstage.  Odd choices regarding the characters also prevail, like transforming Teiresias into a hippy prophet with a harmonica.  The production appears confused and overwhelmed by what they tried to present, putting on a lovely physical production (though elements like the sloganeering banners at the end are barely seen and poorly displayed) with strong movement elements.  In place of more work on the script and its inner depth to make the play accessible to as many members of the audience as possible, it feels as though the company may have chosen to focus their energies in the wrong places, sacrificing substance for style.

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Review: SOULO (Fringe)

by Jason Booker

The reason to see the SOULO show is the people who made it – who are also the ones in it. Bravely confronting their backgrounds, the three monologues that comprise this show were written by each of the performers about their own experiences and, using their natural charm, they tell touching stories that should be heard. The show begins with an upbeat and brassy gay anthem while the three performers and their unnecessary and unfunny emcee parade on to dress the stage in Pride-related paraphernalia.  While this business sets the stage and introduces the performers, themes and style of the piece, it feels tacked on rather needlessly, which they unfortunately return to at the show’s conclusion. Marco Bernardi, the middle monologist, oozes charm, telling of coming out to his Mother, his professional aspirations and the search for a boyfriend. His energy betrays his training as a storyteller and stand-up, since his story seems malleable to modification as Bernardi plays directly to his audience from the edge of the stage, often prompting interaction with his material. The final soloist, DJ Edwards, brash and brazen, comes onstage in a platinum blonde wig and sequined dress and leaves a different person. Edwards as Vicki Lix has a loud, in-your-face persona but he strips away the over-the-top female to reveal his Saskatchewan roots and introverted adolescence. Sadly, many of the times during his story when he is about to make himself most vulnerable – speaking of his first hookup in a park for instance – Edwards yanks back from the brink, burrowing himself in an ultra-butch persona.  The style of show they have chosen demands that the performers bare themselves emotionally, but Edwards chooses to do that literally instead, hiding behind his characters, which he concedes may be unhealthy but is his coping mechanism. The heart of the show, though, actually initiates the proceedings, in a position that maybe should have been swapped with Edwards. Terrence Bryant narrates his childhood, growing up in a large family and knowing he is different, skipping to school and travelling abroad after he loses too many friends to AIDS. He is the essential piece of the story, informing the audience that there are dark moments but there is hope and there is survival, because look at everything he has come through. Grounded and heartfelt without overexposing himself, Bryant provides the historical context for his younger counterparts but also manages to connect on a deeper and more professional level than his cohorts, likely due to his professional acting credits. A charismatic and moving show, SOULO keeps it raw and simple but never seems unpolished, though sometimes it needs to recall that there is more to being queer than simply coming out and that the play does not need to apologize for going to those dark places.

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Review: Absolute Alice (Fringe)

by Jason Booker

With a cast of over 20 people, Absolute Alice crams an awful lot in an hour. Based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the piece faithfully includes all the elements of the first book from the Mad Hatter and the Tea Party to the Lobster Quadrille, croquet with the Queen and her flamingo mallets and the Knave of Hearts and his trial. One of the flaws included the Eat Me and Drink Me potions that lead to the pool of tears – there was no real growth or shrinking effect on Alice – standing on a chair and cowering under the table are weak imitations of changing size, especially if you intend to complain to the Caterpillar about never staying the same size for long. They do also forego the visit to the White Rabbit’s house for logistical reasons. The show looks amazing due to the costumes by Audrey Marriott and Max Martin (who also adapted the script) that create a steampunk effect, decadent gothic with faces painted white, some hollowed eye makeup and lots of blacks, feathers, satin and crimson lamé. The well-paced show features lots of young performers who shine in some strong cameos: the cryptic White Rabbit who’s gone down The Hole, the delightfully drowsy Dormouse, the underutilized Narrator (who should have been given  a more clear function, or been Lewis Carroll himself), a sly and slinky Cheshire Cat, the bitchy Duchess and the quietly commanding King of Hearts. Lucy Martin as Alice has an interesting take on the role, slightly jaded and sarcastic but curious, but she gets lost in the glamour of Montgomery C. Martin’s production. The show ends with a dance party instead of finding a conclusion (then again, the original book doesn’t wind up very well either) and never clearly articulates why the creators needed a new version of Alice. While there’s a strong aesthetic for the production, there isn’t a matching spin for the script or the performances to justify another adaption of everyone’s favourite LSD trip – I mean, children’s story. The title, seemingly referencing the vodka brand with the typeface used, also remains unexplained. Enjoyable and breezy, entertaining, stylish and fun, Absolute Alice might not be the best version of Carroll’s classic but it may serve as a good introduction for newcomers to the story and the newcomers in the show.

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Review: Viva! (Fringe)

by Jason Booker

VIVA: a show worth missing, even if you are a drunken frat-boy.  (VIVA is also a transit system that you’ll hate yourself for missing, but that’s another issue.)  A revoltingly amateurish show, the actors (even partway into the run) cut each other off and overlap lines, the sound and light cues are late and slow and the show lacks a truly sympathetic character. Using all the of the male parts as fodder for the sit-com style humour, this comedy about a stoner, Matt, who co-opts a video game slogan to become an accidental revolutionary attempts to balance the inactivity with the conscientious Jeremy, the roommate and cook-in-training.  Unfortunately, even Jeremy is riddled with clichés and predictable lines – and then he annoys his girlfriend and sleeps with another woman. If the writing wasn’t bad enough already, the women are thinly-drawn caricatures, only there to serve their man’s needs. Horrifically unfunny, there was barely a laugh during the performance reviewed, as the scenes dragged on. Writer and director Noah Izak will hopefully learn how to structure a show and market it better for his future Fringes, since the plot, themes and characters of this show (what little there is to discuss) were virtually unknown until the show started.

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Review: snug harbor (Fringe)

by Jason Booker

Written by and starring Tracey Erin Smith, snug harbor occupies a bring-your-own-venue entry to the Fringe - the show occurs on the second floor of The Centre, in a medium-sized room with four rings of comfortable meeting room chairs facing a yellow-curtained wall and a small projector screen. It appears that the audience is about to spend an hour in a 1970s rec-room watching a slide show of the latest family vacation.  Smith enters and, before long, it becomes apparent this is a personal story when she introduces herself as Tracey, gives a brief biography that summarizes her credits, then tells an anecdote about her father involving a giraffe hotel. This show is about the relationship between the two of them prior to his suicide in April 2010. Paralleling her journey for resolution with Joseph Campbell’s research into the patterns behind the quest of the epic hero, Tracey yearns for answers as to why her father kills himself in a rather spectacular fashion and what (if anything) she could have done to prevent this occurrence. She details how the news affects her and her sister, shakes up her relationship with her fiancé and shoves her into a downward spiral. Tracey (more familiar than a review usually would be, as the show encourages familiarity) brilliantly recreates some of the sorrowful tales of people from the Survivors of Suicide support group she attended and tells of the personal mentors and advice she received in coping with her grief. A fascinating show that explores the topic of suicide and the consequences and possible warning signs, it borders on therapeutic theatre, where the performer (who is often the writer) vents their issues in order to clear their psyche, a theatrical parallel that is deliberate. Smith and her director, Anita La Selva, seem to have chosen this venue and this style of presentation as a way of dealing with Smith’s own demons, retelling what happened as a way of helping others but also distancing herself from her pain. Sometimes theatre has the power to exorcise the evil within or eradicate the past and educate the future. In this case, snug harbor delivers confidently and strongly, always aware that it is entertainment (as the 80’s music in between chapter titles proves) but the show deals with subject matter often too ugly or personal to be spoken about in public. By exhuming these skeletons and mining this dark territory, Smith seeks to blur the line between show and session – and she succeeds.

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Review: Piecing Together Pauline (Fringe)

by Jason Booker

Piecing together Piecing Together Pauline is one tricky task. Focusing on the life of Pauline Viardot-Garcia, the play drifts between three periods in her life, as a dying Pauline reflects upon her achievements. Who is Pauline, you may well ask. She was a friend of George Sand and a champion of Ivan Turgenev. Not a reader? Pauline also rubbed shoulders with Chopin, Berlioz, Gounod and Schumann, performing and inspiring some of their musical works. She was the daughter and sister of renowned opera singers and made a name for herself in that field as well. Unfortunate that she’s not better remembered then, you might sigh; and unfortunately this play does nothing to help her cause. A jumble of scenes involving 14 actors, half of whom have multiple roles, mixes its locations and time periods so thoroughly, in an attempt to make the play fluid and theatrical, that it mostly muddles the mind. Possibly if she were better known, the audience would have a reference point and the play would be easier to follow. The work, co-written by Roxanne Deans and Director Chris Coculuzzi, often falls prey to its exposition, having characters announce who they are, where and when they are and what has happened to demand their presence. Worse still, many of the actors deliver these speeches with a completely wooden approach to the already stifled and unnatural dialogue. The rhythms of the play are peculiar with some scenes overlapping while other transitions take longer than necessary or occur only because the Director wanted to have a musical interlude; then other moments feel clipped short and the dialogue never becomes more than a re-enactment of a history text. These figures are saddled with having to explain ideas to each other instead of investigating their emotions or coming up with a plan of action, speaking of what they will do and why – but their actions always take place offstage. A directing choice that puzzles is why the older Pauline is not onstage during the first scene, though these are her memories, however she rarely leaves downstage right, in her well-lit chair, once she enters, yet often sits through ten minute periods of utter silence. The costumes and wigs are lovely but lack personal distinction. Flat and numbing at nearly 90 minutes in length, Pauline deserves more than this show offers.

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Review: Rare (Fringe)

Judith Thompson's Rarity

An event perhaps?

by Jason Booker

Curated by Canadian theatre legend, Judith Thompson, Rare assembles nine performers for an unusual show.  Instead of actors playing parts, these performers share their lives with the audience. Not in the way a one-person-show might co-opt the writer/performer’s life to tell a story though, for Rare is a show crafted by the performers and their director, Thompson, to share their experience living with Down’s Syndrome.  

The performers tell of their loves, be that favourite foods, feelings, family or friends.  Michael sings for the audience; Nada teaches phrases from her other languages; James percusses and plays the part of a tiger.  In one of the more tender moments, Dylan shares a song he wrote about acceptance; he recites the words, then assistant director and onstage musician Victoria Carr plays the song on her guitar as Suzanne dances.  The cast also tell of their frustrations and of their losses, which include a father to cancer and a brother to drugs.  Krystal pleads with women to not abort their pregnancies due to a Down's diagnosis, before Andreas expresses his thoughts at being called retarded (hint: he’s not happy).

Review: Little Lady (Fringe)

by Jason Booker

From the imagination of performer Sandrine Lafond, this mostly entertaining forty-minute solo clown amuses with an amicable and adorable lead character. The show opens with Little Lady’s bum in the air, head burrowed into a stuffed doll: she is asleep. Once she arises, Lady cleans herself, eats whatever is prepared by her magical covered salvers and watches television. Charming though she is, dressed in her orange jumper, oversized rhinestone glasses and fur jacket, vaguely resembling the Gray Gardens ladies, the routine of watching this young clown’s days pass drags without a discernible plot or through-line. Even when the pattern of her activities is broken by nightmares, which may be off-putting to a family audience, no purpose for the adventure emerges. During one of her nocturnal recesses, Lady sprouts an oversized bum with matching breasts, transforming the show into a musing on puberty and maturity.  Or maybe the mutation is simply regression of the older clown into her younger self, as she previously had been walking on her toes with a knee-high cane and knitted to televised instructions quite comically.  Directed by John Turner of Mump and Smoot fame, Lafond has a fantastic physicality in the role and engages and flirts with her sometimes unwilling audience nicely, however without a clear journey for this clown, Little Lady’s performance fizzles before arriving at its conclusion.

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Review: Sundance (Fringe)

by Jason Booker

Populated by Western legends like Wild Bill Hickok and Jesse James, Sundance contemplates theories of change while set in a saloon.   From the pre-show on, the audience is treated to a taste of authenticity with the bartender (Alexis Budd) behind the counter, reading while everyone files in.   The play does not have a lot of action (aside from the gunshots that are fired towards the end) but contains a lot of dialogue, much of it ramblings about reason and rationales, questioning why things are the way they are and how (and if) they should adapt and alter to the world and people around them.  Hickok (Carmine Lucarelli) and Jesse (Geoff Kolomayz) begin with some entertaining banter about the pleasures of shooting others, however it slips into talking-head mode shortly.  This comedic play by M.Z. Ribalow is enjoyable and amusing, not exciting, challenging or particularly witty.  The costumes look great – diverse, evocative and colourful though not quite weathered enough – and the dialogue rings true with its slangy rhythms and drawled deliveries.  The actors earn laughs for the show’s charms, surprises and non-sequiturs amid an atmospheric sound design by Kyle Layton Thomas.  Characters are sharply drawn and solidly performed, based on the good idea behind Ribalow’s script; however the piece never became compelling.  Directors Eli Jenkins and Ana-Marija Stojic could have emphasized the humour even further (instead of leaving long stretches of dialogue with a laugh) by tossing in a few more sight gags and innovative blocking on the small stage to engage the audience further, however at 40 minutes the show seems to fly by.

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