Brooklyn U.S.A.

After his Wanderlust show that took us into the desert at the Fringe a couple of years ago,  Dockery, the shamanic story teller is back.  The man who transforms his whole body into a story telling instrument, to produce a delirium of vocal sounds, movement and bodily language,  takes us on a long and exciting adventure, full of surprises, twists of language, unexpected humour and lightning references to the encyclopedia rumbling around in his head. All this to bring us into  touch with his inner world and help us understand his own vision of the history of  LSD. This is a most unique story teller, the likes of whom I have never seen in my whole life and I have seen magical story tellers throughout the Caribbean, the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and Latin America. This man psyches himself up, gets physically inside his subject matter and explodes with a volcanic energy that makes us hear and feel exactly what he is describing. Do not miss this adventure that is much much more than what it appears. 

The choice of Michael Lesslie’s prequel to Hamlet, a witty, ironic and always elegant text, has been called by this British author “the stepping stone for young people into Shakespeare”.   Conceived for young actors, it would appear to be the perfect vehicle for this inaugural performance of Ottawa’s New Young Company, working in association with  Third Wall Theatre.

Unfortunately, this  text mainly highlights the weaknesses of the players and the direction of actors in general.  The play is characterized by heightened language which echoes both Shakespeare and modern adaptations of this language that try to capture the irony rooted in this text. There is even comic relief by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as British school girls . Lots of fun but not quite what one would expect and all this is  extremely difficult for young players who have relatively no experience. I would have thought that giving them a text written in a language  more familiar to their own, would allow  them to feel more at ease on stage, would have made this first stage experience much more beneficial.

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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. 

The fringe is a chance for artists to try out new ideas thus it is also a game of chance for the audience. You never know what you will get, in spite of the buzz. Such is the case with the Vanity project. This work is essentially a pop opera based on the Greek myth Narcissus whom fate has destined to loneliness because he is only able to fall in love with his own image. Oberholzer wants to explain the truth behind this but his “cautionary tale” did not show us that truth very clearly.  The score with the melodies and accompaniment are composed by Tim Oberholzer, Stewart Matthews and Rachel Eugster. An interesting initiative which unfortunately is certainly not ready to be shown in public. For the innocent audience member, it is a performance that appears to lack direction of all kinds. The actors, who often are not particularly competent, don’t seem to be sure of their movements and musical direction in general seems to be missing. Sometimes the accompaniment works against the melody giving the impression the singer is flat even though most of the voices are rather good. In general however, the whole process of vocal interpretation seems to have been ignored. Transitions between songs appear to have been given no thought at all and in general, the actors/singers  have been left to fend for themselves. I have to admit that the half masks were very classy.  Frankly though, the ensemble work  was painful to watch. Should they continue with this project? I don’t think they can tell until they bring in a real musical director who shows them how to put together a piece of light opera. At that point it might become clearer.

Nhar Moves performed by Chris Kauffman. Original music by Nandi Rose Plunkett. 

Delightful!! That’s the word. Not a show of virtuosity, not slick but there is great sensitivity and artistic flair in the actions of this clown. He stages his own set by projecting diapositives on a small screen and then invents the story of a lonely clown who needs a friend. Certain visual effects but this is mainly a show of the actor’s body and how he recreates a poetic world around him as he holds a fishbowl full of water, illuminated and transformed into a magical object by the spots at the back . He transforms himself as he plunges into his suitcase of mysterious parts (hats, wigs, moustaches etc) and appears as a new creature with a new face before he takes off into the world searching for  his lost friend, the goldfish.  The musical accompaniment is important and very well chosen, the playful twinkle in his eyes is contagious and charming. . One wants to hug the fellow when it’s over. Adolescents and parents will love this too. Go see it with your kids.

Directed by Kevin Orr. Sound by Sean Green

This is the domain of serious contemporary experimental theatre that I must say from the outset is not to my taste. Nevertheless, there is a theme that is set out at the beginning..a creepy film of the mating rituals of crabs on Christmas Island that is carried on through the play . A high powered urban couple return from a honeymoon there and are thrust upon us as they are forced to prove why their company should promote them. It all takes place around a huge board table where the two are addressing the board and us the audience, as the members of the company. The performance is structured by the questions that appear on a screen, the traces of an invisible power that is watching the whole thing during this interview. The language is an ongoing, rapid, dense collage of all the contemporary buzz words, administrative speak, theories of contemporary social behaviour emptied of their content but rather pasted together to resemble the deconstructed figures of a  Dada collage. Here it creates  an impression of urgency, pressure, tension, slick urban manipulation. The words almost function as atonal music as they often talk at the same time, then  shift gears and keep going.…As the actors speak , their movements, also resemble among other things, a pumped up scenario  of exercises from modern weight loss techniques that are sold on DVD.  The bodies glow with energy!  The choreography of  what one might this   contemporary urban dance/theatre is conceived and directed by Kevin Orr.

Lively, original,  funny, the audience loved it but it did not engage me. Sorry. 

Interprètes : Nancy Kenny, Martine Roquebrune.

Presque du Michel Tremblay mais avec une goutte de violence et de tragédie imminente beaucoup plus bouleversante, cette pièce d’Allan Baker nous plonge dans une ambiance de misère familiale à peine supportable. Tout se passe dans la cuisine de Sandra qui est, effectivement la cuisine au sous-sol de l’église 473, rue Cumberland. Dolores, terrifiée, paniquée, désespérée, arrive chez sa sœur. Dolores a besoin d’aide (la preuve,  son œil en beurre noir) parce que son mari est furieux et cette fois-ci, il va certainement l’achever comme une chienne. Sandra hésite, s’énerve, refuse. Elle ne veut pas se mêler de ces histories. Un dialogue musclé s’ensuit mais peu à peu les liens familiaux s’imposent, les deux se redécouvrent et très vite Sandra passe aux aveux. Elle aussi vit des drames semblables mais elle n’a jamais osé en parler, pour assurer la paix chez elle. Et puis, il y a un rebondissement au dernier moment. Et on voit qu’une véritable réconciliation n’est plus possible puisqu’un coup de téléphone démolit tout ! Une pièce très bien faite, un dénouement profondément émouvant sans trop de sensiblerie, tout y était pour en faire un spectacle parfait. Martine Roquebrune est très convaincante en tant que Sandra, la sœur dépassée par les événements, une femme minée par le secret qui la ronge. Malheureusement, Nancy Kenny n’arrive pas à capter son personnage. Son jeu est très compétent, et son acadien semble impeccable, mais dans cette ambiance de théâtre naturaliste il faut que le jeu passe par les tripes et il est très clair que Mme Kenny n’est pas du tout habitée par cette créature écrasée, battue, la victime impuissante d’un mari monstre qui la tient prisonnière en quelque sorte. Cette situation justifie tout à fait le dénouement mais il reste à voir si au courant de la semaine, elle pourra rattraper la signification de la pièce et enfin se laisser glisser davantage dans les réflexes de cette femme, devenue une « loque » pitoyable. Pour l’instant, on n’y croit pas trop.

À voir St Paul’s Eastern United Church au sous-sol. 473, rue Cumberland.

Dolores by Edward Allan Baker directed by Tania Levy featuring Nancy Kenny and Martine Roquebrune 

Site specific naturalistic drama in the kitchen (of the church) where two sisters meet and reconcile in this impeccably constructed and very moving two-hander. A terrified Dolores (Nancy Kenny) comes to her sister (Sandra) for help. Her husband is battering her, has been for a long time and she doesn’t know where to turn. Sandra wants no part of it but family ties prevail, in all the emotional pressure, Sandra finally reveals the truth about her own marriage and the sisters find each other in a new closeness but not before a surprise ending that suggests the real tragedy to come. A taught drama that Kenny has translated into Acadian French and that takes a few minutes to plug into but the text and the translation work very well. Martine Roquebrune was convincing as the distraught sister who seemed to be living something real in this gut-wrenching naturalism. What is less successful is Kenny’s performance that never once convinces us she is a deeply distraught battered woman. She shows us an elegant, sophisticated middle class character playing at being a victim. The character (whom the actress and the director still have to define more clearly) has not yet inhabited the actress. That was opening night however and no doubt her performance will grow.

See it at 473, Cumberland, St. Paul’s Eastern United Church, Performed in Acadian French.