Review: Ignorance

(photo credit: Jason Strang Photography)

Ignorance is Bliss
The Old Trout Puppet Workshop amazes with its new production

by Stuart Munro

What is happiness? Is it really just a simple matter of winning or losing? These questions, and some slightly more complex ones related to them, are purportedly the subject matter of Ignorance, the new piece by the Old Trout Puppet Workshop, now playing at Canadian Stage’s Berkeley Street Theatre. Created by the Workshop, Ignorance also received input from anonymous contributors via the company’s website during its development, resulting in a uniquely collaborative piece.

Ignorance is a look at how humans perceive happiness, contrasting Paleolithic characters against more contemporary ones. It may be a tad simplistic to suggest that the play’s title is the answer to the question of happiness, but a deeper analysis isn’t really likely to be found here. Before too long, it quickly becomes clear that the evening is more about the comedy than the commentary, but that isn’t really a bad thing. In the hands of Nick Di Gaetano, Viktor Lukawski, and Trevor Leigh, the evening’s three performers, the comedy succeeds brilliantly. Not only did these three mustached men have the audience in stitches for eighty solid minutes (a subtitle for the play could easily be “How many ways can you kill a puppet.” Spoiler—many of them involve strangulation), but they manage to breathe real life into their puppet creations. With nothing more than a simple change of perspective, a stone, a piece of fur, and an antler instantly become a living, breathing person with whom we can instantly identify. The more contemporary characters are portrayed by slightly more realistic looking figures who, nonetheless, seem fully real in the hands of their puppeteers. 

There are more serious moments to be sure and even (dare I say it?) pathos. But make no mistake, the absurdity of Ignorance’s narration and the skill of its performers will leave you smiling and in awe of just how much can be done with so little. Anyone looking for a different but spectacular night out at the theatre would do well to head down to Berkeley St.

Ignorance continues to December 15