>>REVIEWS
IGNITE!
Sage Theatre
Pumphouse Theatres
Sage Theatre’s Ignite! Festival packed ’em in the Pumphouse lobby on its first night while Brendan McGuigan improvised an extended, ambient jam on electric guitar. With bodies packed from wall to wall, occasionally rubbing up against the festival’s visual arts displays, the Nextfest-modelled artist showcase has secured a loyal base of participants and viewers (often one and the same) large enough to infuse it with the same energy its emerging artists bring to the stage. And while, in its third year, the festival’s productions may be more about the imminent promise of excellent theatre than the consistent delivery thereof, Fast Forward is diligently bringing you coverage of six of the festival’s eight productions for this reason: emerging or not, hit or miss, it’s always a hell of a show.
THE DIRTY GODDESS: A FAIRYTALE FOR BIG KIDS
Even when its performances were uneven or where its script lagged, The Dirty Goddess: A Fairytale for Big Kids did not lose the stunning power of its production design for a moment. Red curtains hang around a fairy tale of lost innocence and discovered independence, with peasant heroine Vasalisa (Tawny Lehan) navigating a menacing fairy wood with the guidance of her departed mother’s red shoes. Accompanied by a live soundscape (performed by Susan Faulkner, Danielle French and Natasha Platt) infused with all the dark enchantment of the play’s magical world, The Dirty Goddess features a visual and aural finesse rivalling the best of Calgary’s mainstage season.
From a triumvirate of half-man, half-horse knights running the gamut from shining to tainted (Clifford Kelly), from Babba Yagga’s hopping, chicken-legged house to a collection of beautifully rendered puppets, it’s no surprise that the production was "conspired" by its two key designers, Cassandra Christie and Barb Maier. A triumph of esthetic and ambience, The Dirty Goddess is a perfect example of Ignite!’s promise and the prospect of its continuing success.
Performances? Script? With production design this strong, it’s a fairy tale cakewalk to tweak even the smallest weaknesses. (JK)
THE DANGERS OF BEING
Sanctuary, dreams and the fundamental dangers of existence all play in a world of realism and surreal dreamscapes in Jennifer Roberts’s The Dangers of Being. Stretched across three vignettes – an obsessive scheme to expunge the guilt of a 12-year-old hit-and-run, a post-apocalyptic world where a pregnant prostitute’s horrible dreams reveal the world’s ultimate salvation, and a couple drawn back together years after the death of their child – Roberts and Col Cseke played characters unified by their fears and recurring lines.
Along with Roberts’s poetic script, director Tanille Geib and designer Andrea Shanks-Sunderland create a world of tragic beauty whose only flaw is a final act attempting to definitively answer the play’s existential questions. With a production so very nearly complete, it seems a shame to sully its ending with conclusiveness. (JK)
THE SHORTS
(Triple bill: "A World Gone Mad," "Human Man," "Running Out of Time")
If the shorts program had been a 24-hour challenge or a high school drama assignment, Swallow-A-Bicycle performance co-operative’s (Charles Netto, Mark Hopkins, Laura Hildebrandt, Marcy Lanan, Mat Maitland) "A World Gone Mad" would have been a rousing success. The premise (the constant interjection of ironic or stingingly appropriate sponsorship blurbs) offers more hits than misses, and the slipshod (cardboard) esthetic is silly enough to keep its energy going for 10 minutes. Taken as anything other than a presentation to friends and friendly audience members, though, the production’s "lecterns and two dudes wrestling" look is just a sketch that aimed low and hit its mark.
In a festival celebrating emerging artists and early work, "A World Gone Mad" neither showcases its creators’ talents or produces anything but a forgettable piece of ephemera. It is knowingly shoddy, and, against the far more professionally executed comedy of the program’s second production, shows the greatest need for improvement of any Ignite! production.
But where Swallow-A-Bicycle takes five actors to fill its space, Rob Mitchelson’s "Human Man" aims for a far more economical one-man production. So loaded with energy and the strength of its winningly parodic premise (Spider-Man, sans spider, plus radioactive janitor), "Human Man" stands as the festival’s most complete piece. Blisteringly funny, Mitchelson’s rubber face and dryly executed lines are clown theatre at a high-octane clip, over before the audience has time to catch its breath.
Appropriately, Mitchelson’s breathless performance is followed by a dance piece with all the appearance of a manic, stylized aerobic workout. Donning skull caps and a single brilliant blond or electric blue ponytail, Aviva Fleising, Jamie Marr and Laura Ann Smyth run, slide, and contort through the motions of "Running Out of Time," a piece with a likewise welcome dose of economic energy. In the short program, it seems, clown and dance take the program’s title to heart, finding completeness and wild abandon in those scant minutes. (JK)
NOTHING LIKE THE SUN
Even given that Ignite! is a showcase for local artists hoping to be recognized as viable commercial properties, or at least unique visionaries, Melanee Murray’s Nothing Like the Sun is uniquely ambitious. Say what you will about the fusion of elevated, Victorian language coupled with gothic romance tropes and even zombification, but the plot of sexual intrigue and repressive sexual politics in 19th century New Orleans delivers a refreshingly pre-modern addition to a post-modern slate of productions.
Costume drama may have a bad rap, but where, honestly, can Calgary audiences take any in with every company falling over itself to prove that its work is cutting-edge contemporary? Beautifully appointed by set designer Nicholas M. Blais and costume designer Punam Kumar Gill, director Peter Boychuk’s production delivers that long overdue presence, even including a separate credit for its hair designer, Angela Steele.
Beyond the appeal of its window dressing, the production also boasts an impressive performance by the play’s author, Melanee Murray, as a young Canadian woman in search of her sister. Playing the righteous intellectual to the smarmy advances of a criminal autocrat named Gilbert (Ian FitzGerald) and the seemingly friendly motivations of a jaded prostitute, Ramona (Norma Lewis), Murray’s performance and script both balance comedy with earnest devotion to period drama.
Though nearly complete in its own right, the production is perhaps the festival’s most tantalizing promise, straddling the line between professional and developing, all with a premise that’s ambition makes it a standout in a field of ambitious contenders. (JK)
BLACK BIRDS
(Double bill: "Urban Birds" and "Black Sky (White)")
Watching Ayla Stephen and Nelize Joubert fumbling with bizarre, existential questions and wide-eyed naiveté in Urban Birds is nearly enough to induce a powerful wave of déjà vu. The pair’s moments of charming absurdity are reminders of another pair of young Calgary actresses, The Windup Dames, whose charm was often enough to carry their performances.
Unfortunately, like their predecessors, Stephen and Joubert still have some issues in their long form, with their most successful moments drowned out by rambling tangents that go nowhere and find nothing there. Where a few stanzas of contemplation on Archie (Shakespeare versus Riverdale) saw the pair slip gracefully into iambic pentameter, an extended bit on "British" versus "Canadian" identity stretch a thin premise long past its breaking point.
Thankfully, charm can still go a very long way. As emerging artists, Stephen and Joubert have more than enough time to find ways to extend their vivacity. Promisingly, despite their tangents, both show strength with text. Absurd or not, they already write a mean iamb.
In the Black Bird’s second show, "Black Sky (White)," any semblance of text gives way to movement and sound. Simply, the production is a participative movement piece led by Marie-Eve Bonneau and accompanied by a live soundscape created by eYen Zak. Provided with directions and then blindfolded, audience members participate as a cogs in an aural machine.
Unfortunately, the piece is essentially a single moment of clarity burned on its audience’s eyes and ears until the image becomes absurd: nine men and women standing blindfolded, awkwardly running through identical motions to a repetitive soundtrack. The exercise also proves, definitively, that most people can’t hold a beat to save their lives. An intriguing image, certainly, but where many of Ignite!’s other productions might impel more complete examination, "Black Sky (White)" demands less, not more. (JK)
NIGHT MOVES
Given its premise, Night Moves doesn’t necessarily have a lot going for it. A dried-up jock rocker (cliché #1) brings a girl back to his hotel room (cliché #2) after the last show on his farewell tour, and dated "zany" antics ensue.
At a hopeful halfway point, it all threatens to become interesting. Archetypal characters are nearly deconstructed, genuinely funny jokes spin out and the promise of astute observations on humanity beneath the banality appears. Sadly, this glimmer is crushed by a copout ending and the promise of everyone involved is crushed by one-too-many pulled punches.
That said, Night Moves isn’t awful. It has bouts of boring dialogue, contrived plot twists and lacks a memorable message, but it’s also solidly (if inconsistently) entertaining for the 45 minutes it demands.
The two leads, Razor (Geoff Mathews) and Bethany (Julie Mortensen), have a charming interplay that culls some authentic humanity from the flaccid script. Mathews’s subtle expressions and changes in body language illustrate the gradual removal of Razor’s facade, twisting the joke character into someone sympathetic, or at least pitiable. Likewise, Mortensen’s innocent smile, delicate movement and fabricated sexual poise suggest Bethany’s struggle with womanhood far more effectively than the Benny Hill-esque "pursuit" scene that ends in her confessing her virginity.
Conversely, the two supporting performances (by Emiko Muraki and Elaine Weryshko) contain three times the silliness and none of the clever deconstruction. It’s this sort of muddled quality that ends up defining Night Moves, which is disappointing considering the creative team’s obvious potential. If Amos Altman’s script wasn’t so weighed down with cliché – or if it was handled more skillfully, more consistently – Night Moves could be a solid popcorn play. As it is, it feels like a jumble of light comedy elements that add up to little more than its meager premise. (KF) |
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