Cardinal: A playful battle between memory and disease
By Gwenith Kikkawa student in the theatre criticism class of Patrick Langston
Cardinal takes us on an unexpected clowning journey into a man’s mind as his memory deals with an uninvited guest, Alzheimer’s disease. A unique show like this awakens our inner childlike innocence, inviting us to wonder what it might be like to lean into our vulnerabilities with laughter and play when facing the very serious matter of disease.
Mitchel Rose and Madeleine Hall make their mark as both playwrights and performers in Cardinal, a Aplombusrhombus theatre company production. Rose plays Memory, a buoyant and endearing character dressed fully in cardinal red who, as you may predict, enjoys having things just as he remembers them to be. When Hall enters the scene as Disease, a mischievous and yet equally endearing character dressed fully in the contrast of white, she makes a game of her discovery by engaging Memory in a secretive game of hide and seek. Rose, the director, makes imaginative use of the stage set and props that unveils itself as an invisible playground for these clowns to explore the human condition. Thus begins the unfolding of a heartfelt inner battle of trickery and silliness.
Why clowns? Perhaps it is because they are human connectors, the ones who wear their hearts on their sleeves, the ones who are honest to a fault and make themselves exposingly approachable no matter the circumstance. There is a saying in the circus business that “a clown falls down so we don’t have to.” This so beautifully captures the eloquence of Rose and Hall’s clowning and the gift it offers. By making humour out of our reality – all the pains and frustrations of life – we are able to have a cathartic release and transform our pain into joy. What we have here is the work of true alchemy. …