Ottawa Fringe 2013. Assassinating Thomson by Monster Theatre Vancouver, BC

This is essentially a performance by Bruce Horak about Bruce Horak that totally seduces us. Located somewhere between stand-up comedy, story telling, chatting with the audience and a lecture on art of a very untraditional sort, the performance  becomes a self portrait of the speaker while it sets up the mystery of  Thom Thomson’s death and gives us the impression Horak  is trying to solve it. A strange amalgamation of coincidences which are intriguing and heartwarming and keep us glued to this fellow so that 75 minutes float by in a jiffy. 

He tells us  right off the bat that he is “vision impaired, he tells us in great detail how this came about, exactly what he sees in front of him,  how he grew up with it, how he deals with it and how it lead him to his love of painting. He even sneaks a good dose of humour when he explains how he fakes being fully sited which made the audience howl.  Parallel to that,  he talks about his discovery of Thom Thomson and why he has become  so obsessed with finding out how the painter died.  Private sleuth, philosopher and artist bent on making life a beautiful experience, Horak brings together both stories by alternating and criss crossing his tales so that we keep up on both streams. He is also spurred on by the fact that certain coincidences  seem to link him to the artist’s life as well as various intriguing (true or not?) accounts by people who knew the artist.

We don’t feel he is acting..he is simply chatting with us and it is beautiful because he has stage presence, a sense of humour and a strong love of life, a general ease with the audience and a genuine love of what he is doing.  A special kind of theatre that might even be the origin of a new genre called  “serious stand-up of the feel good kind”.  Very special indeed.