(photo credit: Brian Telzerow)
Hot-Button Theatre
by Dave Ross
Wander down Ossington Street, and listen for the hum of a generator near Queen Street. Poke your head around the corner and you’ll see a city bus parked at the back of a parking lot strewn with gravel pot-holes and litter. This is the site-specific setting for lemonTree Creative’s production of Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman.
This production isn’t only site-specific, it is period-specific as well. Board the bus, and take a seat. Then spend a few minutes reminding yourself that it isn’t 2012—rather, it’s 1964. Racial tensions are still high, even ten years after desegregation. The civil rights movement is growing in strength. You will need to keep this historical context in mind as you watch the play, or it’s meaning becomes fuzzy.
Peyson Rock portrays Clay, a fine, young, black man in a three-button suit and tie. Sascha Cole is Lula, a brazen white woman who boards the bus, and proceeds to fuck with Cole. She alternately teases him, flirts with him, and cuts him down on his dress, his education, and his skin colour. Not only does she fuck with him, but she wants to fuck him. I’ll leave the ending to those who still wish to board the bus.
Both actors are strong, though I found Cole’s portrayal of Lula to be overpowering at times, even overbearing, which affected the realism of the play. Rock’s portrayal of Clay is much more nuanced, and feels completely natural. However, the two performers work well together. While Clay is natural and fairly demure, Lula is like a cat on the prowl. Watching her with Clay is like watching a cat toy with its prey before killing it. This is where the weight of the story lies—in the strength and influence that white Lula can have over black Clay, her ability to manipulate him into whatever she wants, while seemingly able to read his mind. The relationship is an allegory for the power struggle between blacks and whites in 1964. This is why it is so important to keep the historical context in mind—otherwise Lula just comes across as a psychotic, manipulative bitch, and the allegory is lost.
Dutchman deals with difficult subject matter, and the ending answers none of the questions brought to mind in watching. The story is a provocative one, which each viewer will experience differently. The bus, with the performers seated amongst the audience, heightens the viewers’ engagement with the story and the characters. Elements of the story are completely surreal, but rendered in the very real environment of a city bus. These factors come together to create a completely unique experience.
What's worse than Toronto's premiere of Dutchman, is this pseudo-intellectual review that reads like a bad 10th grade paper. Good job.
ReplyDeleteyeah, you don't sound like someone settling a personal score.
ReplyDelete