Review
ANOMALY
Lunchbox Theatre
Starring Jennie Esdale, C. Adam Leigh and David Trimble
Written by Neil Fleming
Directed by Vanessa Porteous
Runs until April 23
Bow Valley Square
The daily grind isn’t any easier when it’s the daily shred.
Dave Stevenson (C. Adam Leigh) and Steve Davidson (David Trimble) may not have the most interesting jobs, shredding endless pages of nondescript paper, but at least they’re able to keep "the white shred" at bay. A few colour photographs here, some goldenrod there – it’s enough to prevent the endless stream of white confetti from flooding their heads and leave some room for the indulgent science-fiction conspiracies of their favourite television show, called Anomaly.
Theirs is a comfortable, mundane world, completely turned upside down when the vampy new receptionist, Mona Black (Jennie Esdale), arrives.
Suddenly, Dave and Steve aren’t allowed to answer the phone and there’s veiled talk about $100,000 kickbacks for unshredded paper. The whole deadly dull nest of paper at Shred Man is stirred up by a single, errant anomaly.
There’s no shortage of familiar imagery in Neil Fleming’s one-act comedy, also called Anomaly, where the uniform of choice is a pair of white suspenders and a grey-collared shirt. Left in their humble beginnings as workaday archetypes, Dave and Steve might well die of boredom along with their audience. But a script that provides the outrageous flights of fancy for a cast ready to take them proves more than the sum of its paper-filled set.
Under the skilful direction of Vanessa Porteous, Leigh and Trimble portray a pair of sympathetic losers whose petty frustrations drive the world of "the white shred" in all its Kafkaesque glory. Excited by the very prospect of speaking to random telemarketers and obsessed with a fantasy world where secret agents can be pregnant aliens, they’re a comical pair of repressed drones.
Esdale’s performance as the stern and sultry Mona is a perfect complement to these two drudges, bringing an unbridled flash to the production and underlining Anomaly’s fundamental charm – she’s the piece of coloured paper in a pile of unassuming white. High-heeled and dominating, her snap takeover of Dave and Steve’s ink-stained bubble is both alluring and vaguely discomforting; a surprise only a stern blond receptionist with a mean temper can provide.
Topped off with a flashy show tune that has the performers sloshing around in ankle-deep piles of paper strips, Anomaly is more than a grand homage to the grey slough of mundane jobs. It’s absurd and even endearing, and as welcome as the end of a long, hard day in the metaphorical paper mill. |
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