Ottawa’s Fresh Meat festival leads audiences through an evening of raw, risky and experimental theatre from new and emerging theatre artists. Over two weekends, and featuring two entirely distinct programs, this showcase of roughly twenty-minute trial by fire shows brings creativity to the foreground. Above all else, this is a testing ground for the next generation of artists.

Fresh Meat provides a rare opportunity for theatre markers. It is what a “staged reading” might be for non-text based theatre. And just like at a staged reading, while the shows may lack technical polish, they bring plenty of inspiration. From performances based off of found text, to poetic soundscapes, and even entirely improvised plays, Fresh Meat 4 is all about artistic variety.

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The war room is abuzz. The government may have just lost their majority and heads are going to roll. A power-hungry Prime Minister is surrounded by a bumbling group of cabinet ministers in the PMO, each obviously too stupid, too self-involved, or too guileless to be real, though the verisimilitude didn’t always escape me. Amidst the senseless commotion, a women has lurched her way into the middle of the room, her hands clutching her bleeding abdomen.

This, the first scene of Michael Healey’s Generous, playing at the GCTC and directed by Eric Coates, is the perfectly grotesque entry-point to a darkly comedic play. The government, corporate oil, media, and the Supreme Court are the objects of Healey’s play, but the subject is the virtue of generosity in the public service; and it’s not cleanly palatable when it’s found. From murder, to the spotless opinion of a naïve reporter, or the unsolicited attention that we’d rather not have, generosity takes many forms. Healey portrays a complicated kind of generosity as it plays out in the most powerful influencers in Canadian society.

Healey’s script is twisted, and dark, and its structure is deliberately disjointed. The three scenes that span the two acts of this play present three distinct storylines and flank a fifteen year gap, leaving the audience off balance. This theatrical device helps to pull the audience away from their expectation of a typical narrative structure. Though the scenes seem to mimic reality, they aren’t grounded in naturalism. Michael Healey’s script is intensely wordy, for example. The characters sink into extensive, heady, monologues that feel meta-theatrical and self-aware. …

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God created Adam and Eve, and on the seventh day he sat back and wondered, “But why haven’t they figured out how to procreate yet?” 9^th Hour Theatre Company presents Arthur Miller’s The Creation of the World and Other Business, a story loosely based on the story of Genesis. In this production, director Jonathan Harris sets the story in a clown circus which shifts the story from parable to parody.

The script is far from what one might associate with Miller. Here, Miller does not present his audience with realism, and the story itself does not unfold in a realistic stage-world. Instead, The Creation of the World and Other Business presents an intangible setting (in this case, it is Earth during Creation) where he can examine the nebulous world of morality from a distance. The play presents other-worldly characters struggling with the first-ever moral dilemmas experienced by humankind. God and Lucifer enter many repartees concerning the balance of good and evil, God’s own vanity, and justice. …

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Photo: Cory Thibert.

A brief note: I happened to see HOOTENANNY! during a performance during which their tech broke down, leaving them with huge gaps in the plot due to missing video sequences that help to advance the plot. And so I will just say a couple words, as I think Kate Smith and Will Somers’ brave work onstage, despite these difficulties, merits some attention!

Meet Hoot and Annie–two Australian children’s entertainers—on their world tour! They will play you some of their most beloved tunes, including one that reminds children to “do your chores or you’ll get a spank,” and another about a hopping possum that meets a not-so-friendly fox. This show is a parody of children’s entertainers that calls to mind the irreverent humour of Will Farrell. Hoot and Annie are contractually obligated to tell you that they are best friends, even since Hoot’s most recent stint at rehab.

Kate Smith & Will Somers have a natural penchant for humour that helped them to pull together a really funny performance. They referenced their own broken video sequences, and tried to make up for the gaps in the plot through some crafty improv. This was a solid performance, and I have no doubt that, once the tech issues are resolved, it will be even better.

Performed and conceived by Kate Smith & Will Somers / Smith & Somers

Performed by Keith Brown.

I don’t usually go to magic shows because, frankly, they hurt my brain. Keith Brown’s show, Exchange, does just that. It is a conundrum. A complete question mark. In other words: A great magic show.

Brown is charming and sincere in his performance, while he delivers a set of tricks that defy logic. From impressive feats of memory, to prestidigitation (that I still can’t figure out), and unbelievable guess-work, Exchange is a great performance. What’s more, Brown’s framework is all about creating a bridge between he and the audience, which leads to a very entertaining evening. He has the audience’s rapt attention as he delivers a series of unbelievable tricks that will keep you up late searching the internet for answers.

During the Ottawa Fringe, the climax of Brown’s performance is a feat that supposedly landed him in the hospital, and he has photos to prove it. Whether you are a skeptic or a believer, Brown has the format of his show down to an art and delivers a performance that will stick to your brain like glue, whether you like it or not.

There are moments we plan , and then there are those that sweep through our lives without warning. Too Much Sugar Productions perform Daniel MacIvor’s award winning play, In On It, where three sotrylines converge to portray a story about playwriting and the reaches of authorship in our own lives. Two characters are writing a play. A man facing a diagnosis that sends him into a tailspin. Finally, two characters relive their relationship—from its beginning to its bitter end. It’s about the stories we can control, and the things, desperate as we might be, the we cannot.

MacIvor’s script is beautifully structured and heart-wrenching in its final moments. The directing here fails to create a stage-world that resonates as strongly as the script, and the actors struggle to find their footing in this dramaturgically complicated piece. There are some really touching moments, however, and particularly as the plot beings to reveal its deeper meaning.

Ultimately, the star of this show is its script. Though the production felt like a work in progress, it is a beautiful piece of writing that should not be missed.

IN ON IT

by Daniel MacIvor, performed by Too Much Sugar Productions

SCREWTAPE is a medieval morality play turned on its head. Told from the point of view of Screwtape, a “lower-archy” bureaucrat who serves the devil in hell as a Temptor, the story follows him as he attempts to help his nephew tempt a human soul to the darkside, while the possibility of a last-minute repentance hangs heavy in the air while. John D. Huston’s one man show, fittingly performed in a church, digs deep into the concept of morality, and particularly of the limits of religious morality. Themes of selfless love, faith, humanity, and repentance whip through the text. It is an enjoyably heady play.

The script uses C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters as a point of departure, and pulls it into the modern world through some creative dramaturgical devices. Screwtape is preparing a lecture for an audience of daemons on the subject of tempting the human heart, and of the beguiling concept of selfless love. Meanwhile, he is interrupted by his nephew, by way of a Google Glass type of communication device, who is leading a human soul into damnation. It is satirical piece with a creepy side.

Huston is undoubtedly a powerful actor, and employs a classical acting style which suits the Management-level bureaucrat character perfectly. From his heightened elocution, to his crisp, precise movements, Huston embodies Screwtape very well. Unfortunately, between the style of speech along with a frantic plot that frequently flips back and forth between two conversations, the play is difficult to follow. The structure of the script does not suit the heady themes on which it ruminates.

This production has a strong actor at its helm and is enjoyably philosophical. To note: One very bad joke about “church shootings” was in very poor taste.

SCREWTAPE

by John D. Huston from C.S. Lewis / By the Book Productions

Saint Paul’s Eastern church

Martin Dockery’s solo show, Bursting Into Flames, is an exhilarating exposition on life after death, presented through the eyes of a character who is lucky enough to have landed a spot on the right side of the equation. Dockery’s character is sweet-as-sugar and oh-so thrilled to be able to tell us a little bit about his new life in heaven. From perfecting the art of hosting parties, to attending his friends’ recitals, and indulging in endless amounts of time to get to know his friends, his days are pretty full. And if you think heaven couldn’t get any better, you’d better think again.

This show is pure, comedic gold delivered at a break-neck pace. Dockery is mesmerizing in this show, delivering anecdotes straight from his life in heaven with an over-the-top, saccharin, pure, undiluted joy that, if we didn’t know better, could only mask a sinister truth. But there’s no time for that in heaven: Let’s have desert instead!

Dockery is a crackling firework throughout this performance, and a master at theatrical slight-of-hand. This play is expertly devised, deftly delivered, and wonderfully complex.

Rm 311 U of Ottawa theatre department..