November: One of the season’s best productions!

    
Director John P.Kelly. Photo: David Pasho

Anyone who cares about about good theatre should keep an eye on what’s happening at the Gladstone, a venue with a growing track record for eclectic, adventurous programming and generally high production values. Unfortunately, it tends to be overshadowed by the more prominent presences of the National Arts Centre and GCTC — and this could be dangerous to the Gladstone’s long-term financial health. It’s a place that merits our support.
> All of which is a preamble to saying that this Gladstone Avenue venue is currently housing SevenThirty Productions’ outrageously funny take on David Mamet’s scathing political satire, November, and that it deserves to be playing to sell-out houses. It’s highlighted by Todd Duckworth’s hilarious performance as the dim-witted president of the United States — and if this bumbling narcissist reminds you of George W. Bush, it’s not likely that either Duckworth or director John P. Kelly will quarrel with you.
> Mamet’s play unashamedly embraces cartoonry and blunt-edged caricature in the course of his zany account of one chaotic day in an Oval Office neatly re-imagined for the Gladstone stage by set designer David Magladry. It’s a day which sees the foul-mouthed and self-absorbed President Charles Smith working himself into a lather over the probability of being ousted from office by the electorate. He’s further obsessed over the probability of not having the money to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors by setting up a presidential library in his name. Smith revealingly keeps mispronouncing this institution of his dreams, referring to it as his “libary” — and that’s scarcely surprising given that this whining cretin doesn’t appear to have ever read a book in his life.

> Duckworth trots out the essential ingredients for turning the most powerful man in the world into a monumental bonehead. But beyond the furrowed brow, the worried feral eyes, the gulping speech cadences, the hollow posturing, the twitching body language, you also find a certain animal cunning and survival instinct which have nothing to do with intelligence.
> Still, we must be frank: this president really is preposterous beyond belief — quite unlike the more nuanced but still devastating portrait of Bush provided by British playwright David Hare in his play, Stuff Happens. But there’s little value in accusing David Mamet of excess in November because when he wrote this play he was angry enough to give no quarter to Bush — or anyone else for that matter. The play is quite prepared to offend everyone — not just the Republican Party but also the Gay and Lesbian Defence Alliance and possibly the American Indian Movement. The president’s speechwriter — Chantale Plante in a full-throttle performance — is a fervent lesbian who wants this right-wing White House buffoon to preside at the marriage of herself and her female partner. Then there’s a sonorous-voiced Bruce Sinclair in the role of an aboriginal militant named Chief Dwight Grackle: he arrives in the Oval Office in full regalia and flourishing a poison-tipped arrow as he demands the return of Nantucket Island from the white man.
> Threading its way through the mayhem is perhaps Charles Smith’s most immediate concern — the arrival of two turkeys in the outer office and the growing frustration which their caregiver (a lovely performance from Tom Charlebois) experiences over the president’s refusal to pardon the gobblers until he receives a massive pay-off from the turkey farmers of America.
> It’s not just that director John P. Kelly ensures a high hilarity quotient and keeps everything moving vigourously enough that you don’t have time to question the dramatic logic. It’s also that he understands the rhythms and cadences of Mamet’s remarkable dialogue. This is evident for example in the revealing exchanges between Duckworth’s frenetic and often gibbering commander-in-chief and the calm, unflappable demeanour of the president’s chief of staff, beautifully portrayed here by Steve Martin as one who has seen and heard it all. Duckworth also excels with another Mamet trademark, the phone conversation. There are several of these in the play, and Duckworth makes every one of them a sequence to be savoured.
> November can’t be recommended too highly. But there is an ironic twist in the fact that Mamet still allows it to be staged. After all, he notoriously turned his back on liberalism last year to embrace a brand of conservatism so extreme that some right-wing apologists — among them that brilliant columnist, the late Christopher Hitchens — pulled away from him. It seems unimaginable that Mamet would write a play like November today, but he apparently doesn’t consider it unimaginable to continue to earn money from it.
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> November by David Mamet plays at the Gladstone until December 8. Call 613-233-4523 for tickets.
> Directed by John P. Kelly
> A production of Seven Thirty Theatre playing at the Gladstone.
> Stage and lighting design : David Magladry
> Sound design: Steven Lafond
> Costume design: Jody Haucke
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> CAST:
> President Charles Smith: Todd Duckworth
> Chief of Staff Archer Brown: Steve Martin
> Turkey Man: Tom Charlebois
> Bernstein: Chantale Plante
> Chief Dwight Grackle: Bruce Sinclair
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