Photo. Courtesy of the Ottawa Fringe Festival.

Macbeth was never an easy tragedy to read and understand. Numerous directors and actors have struggled to reach the meaning behind its story. Very few have succeeded. After seeing Weird: The Witches of Macbeth, it is clear that Phillip Psutka is definitely one of them. He rips Shakespeare’s famous tragedy apart, pulls out its essence, and puts it together in a new way.

Psutka’s presentation has a true Shakespearian atmosphere. The time and the actions are right, but the angle is completely different. He shifts the focus on the three sisters who plot and steer the cause of events in the famous tragedy. Why do they decide to help Macbeth, how do they realize their mistake, and what does it take to correct their misdoings? Phillip Psutka & Lindsay Bellaire explore the reason behind the three witch’s actions and the price everybody involved has to pay.

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Can you think of another venue where one of the devil’s helpers could choose to try to convert the enemy?  This Senior Tempter (John D. Huston) is very eloquent and his delivery excellent.  His voice echoes off the high church celling when he is in full motivational mode.  Transitioning  between conversations with his nephew Wormwood, his aide, and a call from down below are not clearly defined.   The dialogue is clever allowing the actor to present arguments to his nephew, explaining how to bring the enemy over to their side.  This play, a little too long, requires dedicated concentration not only from the actor but also for the audience. 

Freely adapted by John D. Huston from The Screwtape Letters and Screwtape Proposes a Toast by C.S. Lewis.
Performer: John D. Huston, By the Book Productionsé
Performed at St-Paul’s Eastern United.

This is a consistently funny and dazzlingly creative piece about two middle-aged guys and a mysterious box that contains a sinister toy — but is it really a toy? Maybe it’s a time machine. In any event the object tests their friendship in unexpected ways, frightens the bejeebers out of them and seems to have trapped them in a time warp. Dockery, all flailing arms and legs, is terrific as the guy who’s plunged into gibbering neurosis by this item — plucked, we are repeatedly told, from his own closet. Jon Paterson is the buddy who has increasing difficulty maintaining his equilibrium in the face of all this angst. Together these actors manage the crisp, ping-pong dialogue with comic agility — and bolster it with memorable body language.

This an entertainment rooted in the absurdist tradition. There’s Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and N.F, Simpson, plus smidgeons of Peter Cook and Harold Pinter from the days when they wrote review sketches. As well, there should be a doff of the hat to Bill Murray and Groundhog Day. A winner all the way.

Inescapable by Martin Dockery

From RibbitRePublic, Vancouver

Arts Court Courtroom

A young writer struggles with a new script, trying various scenarios while coping with the sometimes trenchant advice of his male partner. So, at the beginning of Daniel MacIvor’s one-act play we seem to be entering intriguing dramatic territory about the troubled processes of creation. More layers emerge in the apparent form of projected scenes from the script being prepared. There are a couple of splendid sequences about a man facing a frightening medical diagnosis, one degenerating into a furious confrontation with his doctor, the other a painful session with a grown daughter who really doesn’t want to be brought into closer intimacy with her dad, especially if he may be suffering a terminal illness.

Such scenes demonstrate this playwright’s gift for strong naturalistic dialogue and persuasive characterization. But over-all, the material doesn’t connect. MacIvor has this habit of coming up with strong narrative and thematic lines, which he then proceeds to clutter up by going off on unnecessary tangents employing extraneous material. Ultimately, In On It something of a mess, although the production has its moments, and contains some good performances from people who cannot be identified because no cast list is supplied.

In On It

By Daniel MacIvor

Too Much Sugar Productions, Ottawa

Arts Court Theatre

Linda Webster is a powerful and enigmatic presence in this play about a rich guy who launches a lengthy money-for-hire relationship with an attractive hooker. Sterling Lynch, teetering between jitters and the kind of self-confidence that comes from material security and macho entitlement is the guy. But it’s Webster, superb at communicating through silence, her smile as inscrutable at times as the Mona Lisa’s, who really wins our attention. She’s the one who really does know when fantasy is bleeding into reality. The play doesn’t work, but it can intrigue.

Autoerotic, produced by Tangelico, Ottawa

By Sterling Lynch

Directed by Wayne Current

Featuring Sterling Lynch and Linda Webster

Arts Court Library

A confession: I left after ten minutes, quickly sceptical of those promotional blurbs offering a “breathtaking” double bill that would “hypnotize, captivate, and surprise” me from beginning to end. The beginning was enough to turn me off. The main impression was of a man and woman dragging each other around the stage, showing off their talents as physical contortionists, and exhibiting a dutiful responsiveness to the dull choreography imposed on them. This is the sort of thing that gives performance art — and fringe festivals — a bad name.

Damaged Goods: Why Bother?

Produced by YouMeAnd EverythinginBetween

By Jocelyn Todd

Arts Court Theatre

The title of this piece holds promise. But the end result yields zero dividends. Evan Walsh is a personable enough presence on stage, but the deceased grandfather’s journals that form the basis for this show are pretty insubstantial. Intended to be evocative of a past culture, they are for the most part dull. Indeed, Walsh himself tells us that there’s not much there, thereby leading us to ask — so what’s the point? There are unsuccessful attempts to juxtapose his Newfoundland roots with his present big-city existence, there are moments of emotion that don’t really jell with anything else, there is clumsy staging. And there is no compelling reason for this purposeless piece to be existing at all.

Written and Performed by Evan Walsh

Arts Court Library

 

Hymm’s in Hearse Theatre’s production, Pachiv! revolves around Grease (Tony Adams) and Ewe (Chelsea Young), a young Easter European couple newly arrived to Canada. They hold a “pachiv,” or lantern party to get to know their neighbours. Although the couple is energetic, optimistic, and a little bit naive, a darker layer lurks behind their hospitality and smiles. Although they have left their lives in the old country behind, their problems have followed them to Canada.

Although Adams and Young put a lot of energy into this production, they ultimately fail to connect with the subject matter and, therefore, the audience. The issues their production touches on – poverty, starting a new in a foreign land, the immigrant experience – are all very real to many Canadians. After all, this is the fabric of Canada’s story. Pachiv! fails to capture this experience, mostly because it feels like the actors are telling a story so far removed form their own experiences that they could only brush at its surface. Accents (which magically disappear whenever Adams and Young sing) don’t make a story about immigrants and, at times, run the risk of being offensive to the group of people being portrayed.

A production that asks actors to step into a different culture and mindset takes a lot of research and understanding. Unfortunately, Pachiv! didn’t show either. The actors came off as being in over their heads, trying to portray people, issues, and a subject neither of them understood.

Pachiv! plays at Bronfman Amphitheatre

In On It is an interesting concept that only half works as presented, mainly because of the unevenness of the performances among the large cast.

The play within the play at one side of the stage is a closeted gay playwright’s way of trying to work out the issues in his dying relationship with his helper (a good performance from the helper, but he like the rest of the cast is unnamed.)

The story of the fiction within the fiction is about Ray (another good anonymous performance) who has just been diagnosed with an apparently terminal illness. As he searches for sympathy from the various members of his family, they turn away, another reflection of a dying relationship.

Like the performances, the tempo is uneven, giving the impression of insufficient rehearsal time. The result is that this production of In On It falls into the middle ground of barely adequate but forgettable.

In On It by Daniel MacIvor

Too Much Sugar Prod.    Arts court Theatre (Venue 1)

Courtesy of the Ottawa Fringe. Jon Paterson and Martin Dockery.

This clever, absurdist style drama maintains its momentum despite the circular arguments that are its focus.

The confrontation between two friends — soon to become erstwhile friends because of the deep-seated envy that unites and divides them — frequently revolves around a box (unseen) that may or may not be a toy or a time-travel device and may or may not work.

Repetition, a risky tool in drama, requires fine acting and careful timing to be effective. Both are here in spades as Martin Dockery and Jon Paterson dance in and out of the reality of the ties that bind and separate them.

Simply superb.

Inescapable By Martin Dockery RibbitRePublic

                                                                                            The Courtroom (BYOV A)