Preview
CUL-DE-SAC
Da Da Kamera
Starring and written by Daniel MacIvor
Directed by Daniel Brooks
Presented by One Yellow Rabbit
Runs January 7 to 11
Vertigo Playhouse (Tower Centre)
The master of the monologue is returning to the High Performance Rodeo with his latest performance piece, Cul-de-sac, and he sounds pretty happy about it. "There’s something about the solo that just fits me," says Daniel MacIvor.
He’s right.
The Nova Scotia-born actor-playwright began performing theatre before he really knew anything about it, thus, he didn’t know the rules.
"The thing that immediately inspired me or instructed me was that there was an audience and, to me, it was all about their presence," MacIvor says. "I guess I’m really interested in the energy that’s exchanged between the audience and performer."
And what a fabulous energy it is. MacIvor captures you within seconds of taking the stage. He manoeuvres through emotions you didn’t know existed and beguiles you into joining him on a fantastic journey. Co-founder and one half of the Toronto-based Da Da Kamera theatre company, MacIvor is a mighty creator and he loves what he does.
"It’s so much about each moment that we’re in, the moment we’re making it and the moment we’re performing it – and it’s so relentlessly, ridiculously, profoundly, perfectly time-based," he says of his theatre. In short, "it’s alive."
Part of that quick presence means taking your time in the process – a Da Da Kamera mandate – which some might say achieves a superior theatrical experience. Spending years on a project from inception to tour may sound like a luxury, but it’s a necessity in MacIvor’s view. "We workshop it for a long, long time, and we’re at that point now with Cul-de-sac where we feel as though we’ve just landed with it."
A true multi-tasker, MacIvor is constantly working on several projects at once. "I think years ago, what would sometimes happen is I’d be working on three or four things and they’d end up collapsing into one thing suddenly," he says. "But these days I think there’s more contrast in the things that I’m working on."
However, similar themes tend to overlap at different points in his life. "Right now, I’m really interested in community," he says. "What is a community? How do we live together in this world?" And that’s what Cul-de-sac explores.
The show is about a man named Leonard who tells a story that focuses on five minutes on a particular evening. We are introduced to Leonard’s neighbours and they all offer their own perspectives.
"Often it’s about what’s not said or what’s contradictory that tells us his story," says MacIvor. "And it’s pretty show-offy!
"I thought, I’m gonna be doing (this show) for a few years, so I’ve got to challenge myself. I thought, What’s the most show-offy thing I can do?" What he came up with was a tour de force scene where he plays all of the show’s characters gathered together at a Christmas party.
In terms of presentation, Cul-de-sac is a similar creature to Monster, the last monologue MacIvor performed in Calgary. While he says that this piece will initially seem sweeter than his other works, he promises that it is not. "It turns and it gets ugly," he says.
At the same time, his approach to the multiple personalities within this story has altered somewhat from Monster. "The characters are slightly more delineated," he says. "I pull back the layers of archetypes to reveal humanity."
One thing about our existence that MacIvor consistently explores is mortality. "Always death. Death, death all the time," he says with resignation. While he may seem a little blasé about the subject, he simply states the unavoidable truth.
"We can be sure that we share it – it’s something we have in common. We’re all doing it constantly, every moment of every day."
We usually think of Maritime humour as being regional, but there’s a sparkling universality to MacIvor’s work that allows him to tour internationally. "Generally I think what’s funny is funny and what’s sad is sad, and that plays in Tel Aviv or Dublin," he says. "I think there’s something really life-affirming about the fact that we can travel all over the world and that there’s something that’s human that we react to – that reacts in us, that’s the same."
Bringing that universal awareness back to his own little corner of the world, I ask MacIvor if he knows who his neighbours are. "Yes, I do," he replies. "The fireman next door and the two gay guys in front of me who take a hose out on the crackheads and the old people beside me…. What I am interested in and what I am looking for and haven’t quite found is a functional community that I feel like I’m part of. I’m actually in pursuit of community." |
Copyright ©2004 FFWD. All rights reserved.