Preview
FILTH
One Yellow Rabbit
Adapted for the stage and directed by Harry Gibson
Written by Irvine Welsh
Starring Tam Dean Burn
Runs until February 22
Big Secret Theatre (CPA)
Drinking, drugs, racism, sexual depravity, ultra-violent tendencies, abuse of power – all these things make up the filthy habits we’ve come to expect from the worst representatives of our police.
Scottish author Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) embodies them all in his most complete anti-hero, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson. And One Yellow Rabbit is gutsy enough to put this shocking and compelling scumbag on the Calgary stage.
Filth, Harry Gibson’s third adaptation of an Irvine Welsh novel, is a one-man show that delves into the frightening realm of banal, everyday corruption. Tam Dean Burn – the only actor to have played Robertson – sums up the character best: "He’s a monster."
Burn has been portraying this difficult and unsavoury monster since 1999, but he’s also tackled the characters and creatures that populate Robertson’s life, mind and bowels. Burn shifts from Robertson to his superiors to his wife to his enemies to his friends to the parasite in his colon in a disturbing stream-of-consciousness style that evokes Robertson’s madness. But Robertson’s atrocious personality is not without redeeming qualities – and those qualities make the character weirdly compelling.
"One of Bruce’s endearing traits – I remember Irvine saying this to me – is that often with these types of people they will suck up to their superiors and be bastards to their inferiors," says Burn. "Whereas, with Bruce, he hates his superiors even more than his inferiors and he lets them have it."
No matter how degrading and unforgivable Robertson’s journey is, audiences find themselves pulling for Welsh’s irrevocably flawed homicide detective. But that can be a difficult thing for audiences to accept. Filth is not designed to make people comfortable – it is written to incite and challenge audiences by raising complex questions about nature and nurture, madness and sanity, reality and hyperreality, malevolence and benevolence.
"It throws up all of these as questions rather than just providing answers," says Burn. "It brings up a hell of a lot, a lot of the situations that have happened in Scotland – religion, politics, the miners’ strike, male/female relationships, male attitudes to homosexuality – but I think all of these things transcend locality. They are sort of universal as well."
And it’s the universal theme of love that ultimately allows audiences to see beyond Robertson’s evil and accept the tragedy of his existence.
"Filth is not about love conquering all. It’s like all conquering love," says Burn. "Bruce would have been capable of love, but circumstances worked against him in so many ways. He could have still been salvageable in some way, but he doesn’t get there."
Burn’s intimate knowledge of Robertson and his world underscores the most exciting element of the play — the collaboration of its three artistic minds. Filth is the product of Welsh the novelist, Gibson the playwright/director, and Burn the actor.
"Once we were over the initial period with Filth, Harry just let me run with it. He trusted that I could do it and that’s what he’s done this time as well," says Burn. "I have decided, for instance, that it’s much more practical, much more sensible and much more inspirational to do Filth without the set that we had. It was a big, full-on office set – realistic, lots and lots of props. But this is going to be much more minimum [sic], much more concentrated on my performance and on what’s being said."
Burn’s performance is a rare moment for Calgary theatre. We’re seeing a great actor in the role he created. We’re seeing an important play by an important playwright as it is intended to be seen. And we’re seeing it before its power is diluted by countless lesser stagings or botched by a shabby film adaptation.
Welsh’s work is hitting Calgary’s stage at its unadulterated best – it’s an event that anyone who loves theatre cannot afford to miss. |
