Curtains Up Winnipeg

A sequined dame hitting on someone in the crowd with terrible puns. A panto pony dressed as a goose. Coming across a new health supplements – sorry, beans – salesman on a wheelchair ramp that also brings the action to the crowd. Yelling and booing and doing call backs. These are what made my first experience of panto last night. Can I speak to the pantomine tropes? Nope. Can I compare it to other versions? Nope. Does it matter? Nope, this show is way too fun to get stuck on trivialities like that.

I can tell you the plot of the show fairly simple, based as it is on well known fairytales: Jax and his mother are starving because the ruler of the sky kingdom is hoarding all the resources. Jax then sells their… cow… for beans, which grown into a beanstalk… you get the drift. Along the way, the emperor-ruler-president gets fitted for new clothes, people sing, and much fun is had by all. At the end of the day, the plot is not really what makes this show. It’s those visceral experiences and the interactivity of it all. I mean, when you get down to it, this is just another well performed, super campy, interactive show with multiple layers of meaning and scathing political commentary. Only that.

I’ve already talked about how this theatre company is accessible in one sense of the word, in that it accommodates actors with disabilities. Seeing it in person I was struck by how accessible it was in the other sense of the word: easy to people to appreciate, understandable, maybe even welcoming. Artistic director Debbie Patterson explained that the muppets were one of the main inspirations for the show, their cuddly rainbow soft demeanour hiding some pretty hard jabs in the direction of restrictive social norms. Some of my favourite moments in the show were when the performers brought attention to their own minority status, such as non-binary gender or lack of a hand. My personal favourite was when the actor who is signing accuses the audience of being illiterate because they can’t speak with their hands, but instead use their mouths with gross saliva. It was such a quick, clever, but meaningful moment that worked really well as a political statement. A mentor of mine used to say that realism inherently favours the powerful because the current world is as they made it; this show’s gentle inclusion of diversity is a wonderful example of using the absurd to bring attention to people’s real life experiences. It was lovely

This show is warm and inclusive in that it brings the audience in with it to revel in its terrible puns, glittery props and redone song numbers. I felt great joy in the panto-pony’s “costume changes”. Kids would absolutely love the theatricality of it all. Which gives plausible deniability to people who don’t want to see the commentary on water use, ICE detention centers and, well, basically the rest of the play. They can bathe in fun and music, but also, why would you want to stay there? There is so much more commentary worked in.

The performances in this piece stand out. It is exceptionally engaging. Where I felt that there was room to rework the script was with the real world parallels. Like all satire, this show relies on the audience already having a certain amount of knowledge about the real world that makes the subversion funny. Some of it hit the nail on the head, no questions asked. For example, the Emperor-president-supreme ruler character is just right without needing much finessing. The “new age supplement” beans had me in stitches, since I like most disabled people have faced my fair share of people who believe it’s possible for me to treat my medical condition with some variation of kale smoothies, yoga and meditation…(If this is you I am not sorry and I do not apologize). On the other hand, the digital workers aesthetically clashed with the rest of the show and weren’t well developed as characters. It made sense to have the people of the Sky Kingdom be present in some way, but for me there wasn’t enough drawing out the metaphor of digital work to make it effective. I wanted less political real world parallels, not because they weren’t important, but because I wanted what there was to be drawn out more.

On the other hand, I got unapologetically teary eyed when at the end the message was that it takes a community to tear down facism. What an amazing reversal of the usual fairy tale individualism where one lone rugged individual magically fixes everything. Yuck. Believing any one person should have that kind of power for any reason is what results in those Emperor-president-supreme ruler characters being able to mess things up in the first place.

Also, this is my blog, so let me just say that absurdist campy leftist shows will always be given a warm welcome on my page.

Dear Winnipegers:

I think this panto show should become your holiday tradition. It has the local references you love, the silliness you pretend you don’t need, and the scathing political commentary that works because it’s funny.

This will only get better with more people invested, more participation and more energy. And it’s already really good. I can’t wait to see what they do next. Just so you know, I am definitely a fan.

XOXO Daniela Smith-Fernandez