Review
THE CANADA SHOW
Monster Theatre
Starring Jeff Gladstone, Ryan Gladstone and Bruce Horak
Written by Ryan Gladstone and Bruce Horak
Runs until January 31
Lunchbox Theatre (Bow Valley Square)
Put it down to the age of sound bites and "too much information," but one of the most popular theatrical phenomena of the new century has been the condensation of monumental subjects – the plays of Shakespeare, the Bible, American history – into bite-size comic revues.
Americans Adam Long, Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor of the Reduced Shakespeare Company started it off with The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) and its sequels, The Bible: The Complete Word of God (Abridged) and The Complete History of America (Abridged). Back in 2001, local boys Ryan Gladstone and Bruce Horak took hold of the idea and created their own compressed history, The Canada Show, at Shakespeare in the Park.
Now, after touring it to fringe festivals high and low and playing a gig at Toronto’s Second City, the guys – Horak, Gladstone and brother Jeff Gladstone, known collectively as Monster Theatre – are back in town for the ultimate test: a run at Lunchbox Theatre.
You see, Lunchbox patrons are a hardened bunch when it comes to this kind of show, since the theatre has staged all the aforementioned Long-Martin-Tichenor revues, some of them more than once.
So, how does The Canada Show stack up? Very well, as it turns out. This Monster trio has got all the requisites – boundless energy, relentless irreverence – plus some musical talent, too. One of their funniest bits has a morose Leonard Cohen (Jeff Gladstone) singing a deadpan song about under-appreciated Canadian achievements called "Nobody Knows."
Indeed, at their most inspired, Horak and the Gladstones use Canadian culture and cultural icons to recount the country’s history (which isn’t really that boring – honest). So, Mr. Dressup is recruited to re-enact the tale of Henry Hudson’s search for the Northwest Passage, aided by his hermaphrodite sidekick Casey, with a silent but resentful Finnegan as a mutineer. (Mr. Dressup seems to have been a formative influence on the trio. They also use a Tickle Trunk emblazoned with the maple leaf at centrestage to stow their costumes and puppets.)
The actors themselves play out the eternal Canadian struggle between French and English, with Horak as the pushy English pig-dog and Ryan Gladstone as the thin-skinned Frenchy, reducing the country’s historical tensions to a schoolyard scuffle. And these guys definitely have a boys’-eye view of history, skipping the dull political machinations to get to the battles. The majority of them are fought with Super Soakers (perhaps a commentary on Canada’s military capabilities?), while that infamous Franco-Anglo showdown on the Plains of Abraham somehow becomes a titanic struggle over a pair of boxer shorts.
Then there’s the explorer comedy team of Cabot and Costello, the Riel Rebellion recast as a spaghetti western called "The Good, the Bad and the Métis" and the FLQ crisis staged as a hockey game with Trudeau as the cocky ref ("Just watch me!").
If there’s a complaint to be made, it’s that the comic potential of such ideas is often shortchanged due to the breakneck pace that characterizes these shows. It’s an old showbiz trick – pepper ’em with so many jokes and sight gags that you’re bound to get a laugh. And yes, The Canada Show gets plenty. |
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