Erica Wilson is not prepared to live in anyone”s artistic pigeon hole. The best part? In her February 6 show “Miss Carcass Caresse: Soft Waters”, at Kiyanaan Indigenous Theatre Festival she gets to define the terms in which she creates as, well, an artist. This year’s national indigenous arts development and showcase recipient has created a piece built around her burlesque persona. Equally importantly, it also allows her to break down other boundaries within her creative practice -she describes the show as “actually six distinct unique themes with six unique art styles”. I, for one, am drawn to the promise of burlesque, puppets, circus and water imagery all in one show.
This is the kind of work that comes about when artists are given space to explore their own voice because absolutely no one else in the world is going to mix up this particular concoction. And yet. In our interview Erica Wilson described frequent experiences in the arts being pigeonholed as an indigenous performer, not allowed to branch out past ‘indigenous’ roles. Situations where the opportunities stopped the moment she was interested in not exclusively being identified by ethnicity. It’s the age old problem of thinking that art by minorities can’t also be universal, which is an old story…
“When you’re an indigenous woman that has power in community and power around people, you’re supposed to be modest. That you have to be completely wearing the ribbon skirts and have the feather, and that’s really lovely but that’s also a huge pigeon hole that is boxing people in” -Erica Wilson
It’s far from a radical idea that artists need to follow their own creative voices. Marginalized voices, and indigenous voices even more so, need to be allowed to say what they want to say following their own creative voices. In other words, not just continuing to put out the narratives about ethnicity, or gender, or well, anything else. we’ve all heard before. In Erica Wilson’s description of her ecclectic show: ““I had the mental space, I had the time, I had the energy and also I would call it sacred rage to be like I’m going to complete my tasks”. Even better, this sacred rage is going to fuel something both sexy and funny. Honestly, is there a better way to process an artist’s thought provoking ideas than laughter and titillation?
Burlesque seems like a natural place for someone drawn to “big abstract things” such as Catholic imagery, gothic culture, surrealism and circus. Erica Wilson explained that burlesque performers impressed her “knowing that none of them had to play within their gender or their race”. The genre represented a way of escaping some of the rigid constraints she has struggled with. According to her, “eventually with my rage I was like you know what I can do this too”! And she did. And she has. Across Canada.
The unusual moniker “Carcass Caresse” fits in part because it celebrates “just the weirdness of being this fleshy bony thing”. Caress is soft and sexy, but carcass is a reminder that we are in the end, just bodies. An appropriately distinctive name for a very distinctive artist.
Le multiculturalisme canadien est devenu l’un des défis les plus importants de notre époque. Contrairement à certains , on a une population qui incarne une diversité d’histoires et de perspectives sur la question essentielle : « au Canada, ça veut dire quoi ? Appartenir authentiquement dans ta pluralité ? C’est le point de départ de ce nouvelle œuvre « Ô Canada, té qui toi ? » par Alison Palmer LacinaDembélé et Ramatoulaye Cherif.
L’histoire est se déroule dans une petite ville, quelque chose qui influence beaucoup le déroulement. Alison Palmer a expliqué qu’il y a des éléments qui viennent de son expérience d’enseigner au rurale quand les immigrants ont commencé à arriver en masse. L’enjeu de comment mieux accueillir de nouveaux arrivants est souvent contesté, mais pour Lacina Dembélé « l’accueil se fait par des gestes ». Pas un grand geste symbolique, mais des gestes quotidiens vers les autres, les inconnus. C’est bien possible de voir ce message dans la pièce .
Créée explicitement pour des étudiants de l’école secondaire, la pièce met quatre personnages avec des points de vue distincts dans un autobus dans une tempête. Sans autre recours, ils trouvent la capacité d’avoir de dialoguer à propos de sujets comme la nourriture, la musique et leurs relations avec leurs familles. La pièce réussit à inclure aussi des éléments interactifs comme le rythme, des mouvements et de la poésie slam.
C’est une pièce qui ne présente pas une seule vision d’appartenance, ni du Canada. Pour les gens qui sont enracinés dans plus qu’une culture, y compris moi, la question d’identité n’est jamais superficielle. Si tu es souvent frustré avec la vision du multiculturalisme présenté dans la société canadienne, tu vas bien apprécier cette pièce. Les discussions entre les quatre personnages ne sont pas de simples archétypes, mais des interactions qui viennent des histoires spécifiques. Ce n’est pas l’histoire de n’importe qui – c’est quatre individus, deux qui viennent d’un même pays en Afrique, un métis et l’autre né au Canada de parents qui étaient des réfugiés venant d’Afrique. La spécificité aide énormément le public à comprendre qu’il n’y a aucune personne capablede représenter complètement sa culture ni sa position culturelle. S’il y a une façon d’aller vers un futur multiculturel, c’est en comprenant le pluralisme sans réduire des gens à des catégories trop faciles.
Il vaut la peine de vous avertir : il ne vous donne pas une réponse simple à la question qui est Canada. Ce qui se présente est beaucoup plus important : quatre personnages qui vont vous montrer pourquoi cette question est beaucoup plus importante. Selon moi, être un pays qui continue de se demander comment être vraiment accueillant et inclusive… c’est une raison pour être fier de ta patrie.
Ô Canada, té qui toi ? va être présentée à un public général le 6 et 7 février. Contactez le Théâtre Cercle Molière pour des billets.
Photo by Leif Norman. Tad & Birdy by Anika Dowsett Performers are Samuel Benson and Hera Nalam Set, Props and Costumes by Denyse Karn Lighting by Lovissa Wiens Directed by Erin MacGrath
Meet an utterly charming and also unlikely duo, Tad (Hera Nalam)and Birdy (Samuel Benson), and their wonderful friendship. As you can probably guess, Tad is a tadpole and birdy is, well, you can figure it out. We were lucky enough to catch the world premiere at Manitoba Theatre for Young People. This is an example of children’s theatre where the relationship between the two characters is the core of why the piece works as well as it does. It’s got the kind of magic that made you clap your hands if you believed in fairies at Peter Pan.
Birdy lives in the “safest place in the world”, where not much changes from day to day. This all changes when “Tad”, an “aquatic worm” shows up in a glass jar. Whereas Birdy tries to stay safe in the sameness of his life as it is, Tad sparkles with adventure and curiosity to see beyond the horizons of the room where they are situated. As their relationship develops, Birdy realizes that what he has accepted may not actually be what he wants. There are sad bits where the audience feels for Birdy which are handled sensitively in a way that pulls us forward. This is a story about how friendship can help you be brave enough to make incredible transformations happen.
The set and costumes create the world of a child’s bedroom from the perspective of small creatures. The creativity in how the characters use their environment is absolutely delightful. Everything on stage has purpose, and younger children will have a blast guessing how it will all be used. Between the glorious costumes, the oversized painted set and the completely delightful props, it would be easy to get lost in the cute-ness of the aesthetics… but you don’t. It just has a tremendous amount of heart. The incredible physicality of both actors sells it. On one hand you have the particular rocking motion of the bird who flaps and moults and walks in that very familiar bird gait. In contrast you have the more fluid motions of Tad who shifts and changes throughout the show. Their body language conveyed the story of how they had changed without ever losing the quality that made them unique.
I decided to find a child to come to MTYP with me because I, as a middle aged woman, am just not the intended audience for their season. If I judge children’s theatre by the standards of what I like, I’m not being fair. It’s important to find someone who this show is for and let them weigh in. So this is why I offered one of my favourite humans, River Kovacs (10) the job of official Curtains Up children’s consultant, paid in hot chocolate and theatre tickets. This play marks the first time River is working in this role, but she’s already got the theatre bug thanks to a Nana and mom who have made sure she’s exposed to the arts. She has promised to come to the next one. Check out her bio on the contributor’s page.
According to River, this show “makes you feel like anything can be possible!” She also says that everyone is either a little bit more of a Tad or a Birdy in that they embrace change or are afraid of it. She says she is definitely a Birdy but her mom is a Tad. On a scale of bad- not good -okay – good – very good, she rated it as “very good” and says that she would recommend it to her brother and her friends.
In this case, River and I agree: this is a great play. We did both agree that we wanted some more things wrapped up in the ending. For me with my Unwieldy Adult-ish Brain, it was hard to believe that two wild animals with craft supply prosthetics wouldn’t become very decorative predator food. On the other hand, River did believe that it would be a happy ending, but wanted to see Birdy find his flock. Since this show is for River and not me, I’m going to let her have the last word on this one: happy endings for all, and let the whole wide world find them.
The show opens with a couple surrounded by their stuff, a seemingly random assortment of boxes and objects of varying provenance. Comedy duo Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus are visually and metaphorically overwhelmed by possessions. The storytelling is anchored in these physical objects, alternating between improvised intervals and scripted scenes from the couple’s life. Warning: there is audience participation. There is a loose narrative arc that takes them hauling stuff over the border from the USA, but it isn’t worth your time getting hung up on the progression.
It needs to be said that Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus are absolutely delightful together. They are both now on my to watch list of comedic talents. Individually they are skilled but together they sparkle. Their quick fire responses are fun, and oh so witty. If they play off each other as well off stage as on, it is not surprising why they have been married so long. I would happily watch either of them in any future theatre productions going forward.
The defining feature of the show is that the actors tell it directly to the audience, essentially breaking down the fourth wall completely. This gave it the feeling of a stand up comedy special with some rehearsed segments. This gave it a coziness, but also a decidedly non-theatrical feel. It ended up feeling like you were having dinner with a really interesting and entertaining couple – enjoyable, but not generally what I go to the theatre to experience. The friend who came with me described it as “a little too long for a fringe play”, and it is a fair assessment of what it felt like – although to reiterate, the actors are incredibly skilled. When it was the two of them, it flowed. When they were drawing out audience participation, it often lagged like a 6 AM line for coffee.
If you have any hoarding tendencies, set designer Michelle Tracey’s landscape of cardboard boxes may provoke serious anxiety. It was glorious, and the interaction with props was extremely well done, but none of that changes the sheer visual impact of STUFF that can absolutely be triggering. If we’re honest, theatre season tickets tend to skew to an older crowd who have most likely had the experience of weeding through a parents’ accumulated possession. That means that for many of the viewers, this show is likely to have a deeper emotional resonance for them than it did for me, and it’s worth acknowledging. If this theme speaks to you, the show will be an appreciated take on a fairly universal experience delivered first person from people who are (more or less) speaking from a place of personal experience. It’s a conversational, deeply accessible show and those have definite value.
My biggest complaint with the show was that I didn’t feel like it delivered any kind of catharsis. I absolutely appreciated why the objects on stage had been held on to, but I didn’t feel like it resulted in any message. When I used to help people with academic writing the question I always gave them was “so what”? In other words, every time you include something, think about what it contributes to the big picture. That was something that ran through my head a lot in this show. I could hear what they were saying about objects, but it didn’t lead me to any conclusion. From what I could tell, the end of the story was that Matt and Naomi were stuck with a house full of huge amounts of stuff from four parents with no real plan to thin it out or get rid of it. If there was more to the ending than this, I would like it to have been clarified a bit. I was left feeling anxious for them, and honestly I have enough stuff worries of my own without needing to borrow anyone else’s.
This is a case of a show where the good parts of it are so good that they make it still worth seeing. If you are a fan of the conversational mode of stand up comedy, this will be appealing for you. If you have had to weed through a parent’s possessions, this will be relatable. It’s great that theatre can speak to a myriad of experiences. I will just be excited for the next production with a narrative thread and a made up story.
Il y a sept ans, mon amie Marie-Ève Fontaine faisait une résidence d’artiste dans l’ancienne maison d’été de Gabrielle Roy, à Petite-Rivière-Saint-François, au bord du fleuve Saint-Laurent. J’habitais alors à Québec et elle a accepté que je m’immisce quelques jours dans son espace créatif, qui a été celui de notre chère Gabrielle. On a fait des randonnées, on a cueilli des fleurs, on a fait disparaître une couple de bâtonnets de pastel, on a jasé littérature, j’ai bu du café et Marie-Ève du thé. On a toutes les deux bu du gin, en se laissant bercer par la balançoire de celle qui nous avait menées jusque là.
Petite-Rivière est belle comme tout, avec ses ciels vifs parfois teintés de roses et de jaunes presque impossibles. Ses forêts, ses eaux et son infrastructure créent des sons qui surprennent. Son monde est fier et généreux. Je suis, comme Gabrielle Roy et Marie-Ève Fontaine, tombée amoureuse du lieu et j’y suis souvent retournée.
C’est ce lieu-même qui se déguise en personnage principal dans le spectacle Cet été qui chantait, présenté au Théâtre Cercle Molière. À vrai dire, la pièce refuse à sa manière le « trop vrai » et l’arc narratif traditionnel – oublions les intrigues, le dénouement et toutes ces affaires-là! Elle repose plutôt sur un univers qui a décidément touché et inspiré une grande écrivaine. La reproduction de cet univers nous invite à voir et à ressentir, en dose plus petite (soit 75 minutes), certaines des mêmes choses qu’elle.
Dès la première scène, on aperçoit Gabrielle Roy (jouée par Marie-Ève Fontaine) arriver au chalet. Pendant plusieurs minutes, elle s’imprègne des détails qui l’entourent et elle prend tout son temps pour trouver ses aises et défaire sa valise. Elle place la table de cuisine où elle la veut, elle déplie une nappe et l’étale sur la table. Elle respire. Elle regarde. Elle remarque. Le ton est donné : « Cette pièce sera lente, habitue-toi. »
Puisque ralentir c’est aussi savourer, le spectateur qui se plie au rythme a droit à tout un plateau de sucreries théâtrales servies par une équipe experte. Celle-ci s’est tournée vers une variété de supports pour recréer l’atmosphère de Petite-Rivière : jeu de marionnette, d’acteurs (Natalie Labossière), jeux d’ombres et de lumière, art visuel, musique et paysages sonores sur scène (Gérald Laroche). Il m’en manque, c’est certain.
Voici une liste non exhaustive des petites merveilles auxquelles je me suis accrochée pendant le spectacle : coassement des grenouilles, lucioles, bleu, boîte à malle, bateau invisible, la gatte de Monsieur Émile, une visiteuse, tchou-tchou, yeux brillants, chants d’oiseaux, rires, quelques bouquets. Même si le vent existait seulement sous les sifflements de Gérald Laroche, je jurerais l’avoir senti, aussi, sous les poils de mes bras.
Vite, rendez-vous au Théâtre Cercle Molière! Vous avez jusqu’au 24 janvier pour découvrir le monde intime d’une autrice d’ici.
Murder on the Orient Express was originally a detective novel by Agatha Christie; it isn’t so much a murder mystery as one of the classics that defined the genre. There is a reason why it has been turned into multiple movies over the years. It gives you our favourite tropes of the 1930’s detective story: set in the milieu of the impossibly privileged classes, you have the wealthy declassé American tourist, the stoic former military man, the governess who aspires to more, the foreign nobility fallen on hard times… I don’t need to list them all because we know them – they have symbolic power in part because of Agatha Christie’s classic works. This production anchors itself beautifully in this created world, and the production is satisfying in the same way as the books that made these stock characters into the classics that they are.
A quick synopsis for those who don’t know the story: Hercule Poirot, a fussy Belgian detective, has finished a case in Istanbul when he runs into an old friend Constantine Bouc who runs the luxury train company the Orient Express. Bouc convinces him to take the train back home with the assurance that it will be nothing but relaxation and luxury – no need to think about crimes. As he meets the other first class guests, Poirot quickly becomes aware that not all is as it seems. He is proved right, because what fun would detective stories be if the detective was actually fallible in any real sense? Ah ha! A JOLLY GOOD MURDER! (As my father would say). Who is responsible ? Who is hiding what? What are the motives? What passions are hidden from view? Come and find out!
This is a very enjoyable show, let me say that from the start. It is beautiful, with set and costumes perfectly capturing the 1930’s aesthetic. It is a show that benefits from high production values, because the world that it inhabits is so over the top. In this version the train feels like another character, sometimes indulging the guests, and other times offering a claustrophobic trap for those who can no longer escape their own pasts or deep emotions. The actors did a great job of conveying this sense of being restricted, helped by an absolutely incredible set that framed them visually as small players in monumental events.
We have to talk about the set. Quite simply, it stole the show. A rotating stage allowed them to shift between locations such as the back deck, cabins and the dining car. Other productions have rotating stages, but I have never seen it used so effectively. For one, the rhythm of the scene changes was beautiful to watch and actually contributed to the feeling of being in motion on a train. Also, every individual set was absolutely perfect, but the transitions were even better. The feeling of shifting from one place to another added to the feeling of this being a puzzle. There is a game called Room I play on my iphone in which you interact with elements on the screen, needing to flip your perspective in order to undo a box and reach at the core secret. This set felt a lot like that. Hats off to designer Brian Perchaluk. I have never been so impressed and taken aback by a set before.
Actor Alex Poch Goldin’s Hercule Poirot carries the show. His version shows the influence of David Suchot’s TV rendition, while also being a sharper and more rigid who accepts neither nonsense or threads left unpulled. This works well with this particular storyline in which he is forced to react to revelations. I did sometimes feel as though it left the impression that Poirot lacked a little empathy in his rush to uncover secrets. It’s not a bad choice, but personally I did feel like I wanted a little more softness. To be fair, this could be based on the fact that I’ve read a ridiculous amount of Hercule Poirot books and have my own feelings about the character.
On the whole, the cast delivered solid performances, hitting the right lines for laughs and playing off of each other well in a way that is absolutely essential for this particular script. One thing I did find was that the characters on stage didn’t give me the feeling of curiousity, of wondering who these characters had been before they jumped on the stage. The exception was Constantine Bouc, played by Ray Strachan. Something about the way he approached that role left me believing that there was a whole other rich backstory to that character which could be revealed given half an opportunity and would be worth a play of its own. This could also be because this play’s emphasis on plot and revelation gave less focus to character development. The drive towards wanting to know what they were hiding kept the emphasis away from learning who the character was. Completely understandable, but it was a limitation.
The staging used for the famous denouement was fabulous. It repeated just enough information without being repetitive, and the lighting and motion perfectly complemented the dramatic nature of the reveal. I almost wonder if it would have been effective to use some of those techniques throughout the story to make the tension increase. For example, would it have been interested to get momentary flashes of what Poirot is thinking throughout the story presented to the audience?
This is a really good murder mystery play. I love murder mystery plays -they are very enjoyable. There is a reason why they are so popular. If you like murder mysteries, you will almost definitely enjoy this one. At the end of the day, this is the message its worth taking away from my review.
There are things that I wonder about, but it’s hard to tell if my criticisms are for the production, or the limitations of the genre. For example, there is a moral question asked throughout the play. I can’t repeat it without giving too much away, but it has to do with a question Poirot tackles at the beginning and at the end. To me, questions like this one are a bit of a Chekhov’s gun: you have to answer, or at least address it, by the end of the play. In this show, Poirot repeats his question, but to me it lacked depth. I feel like ideally, when a show gives me a question like that to think over, I want to leave the theatre still mulling it over, probably even deeply conflicted about what it means. This was not that experience, which is ok, because it was still a really enjoyable one. However, it does leave me longing for a theatrical experience that really leaves me thinking. At the same time, theatre is a little bit like food: you can enjoy different things at different times and still have your individual preferences. Not everyone likes asparagus or puppets. Even if the puppet haters are actually objectively wrong.
So is it worth seeing? Absolutely. This is the right kind of show to see with people who aren’t theatre nerds to introduce them to the artform. This is what you take your mother or grandmother to for a special occasion. Or go to with coworkers so that you can chat about it afterwards over drinks. It is accessible theatre, and there is a huge value to making things accessible.
*****Cet été que chante is a play performed in French at Théâtre Cercle Molière. Anglophones who want to see it can make use of the subtitling tablets available for free. This review is in English to persuade anglophones that this is worth doing. French theatre is meeting you half way – it’s up to you to just show up******
In a rough sense, this show explores a summer francomanitoban writer Gabrielle Roy spent at a cabin in Québec. This description, while accurate, doesn’t capture the nature of this show. If many plays come across as movie-like or acted out novels, this one is poetry: sensory, engaging, and appealing to the emotions over the calculating brain. If you can let yourself enter this world, you are in for a treat – escapism in the best sense of the word, as in takes you to a place outside of yourself. Is it pretentious if I say it’s as much a theatrical experience as a play? I apologize. It may still be true.
It’s also possibly one of the best plays to see if you are depending on the subtitling tablets. Texts are not the primary element, and you can definitely appreciate a lot of the show without needing to follow words. When the text matters, you have time to really feel the words in your body.
The storytelling in this piece is highly multimedia. If you can put aside any need for the suspense of a linear plot, it is well worth it for the experience. The show opens gently, slowly with the rituals of bringing in a suitcase and setting up the cottage. From there, the show explores the imagination of the writer at this one point in time. On one hand you have the figure of Gabrielle Roy, inhabiting this cabin space over the summer, sometimes writing and sometimes just experiencing. Then you also have the use of some really exquisite transparencies, handled artfully to show nature in motion. To be totally honest, I would have watched an hour of those drawings out the window without further plot. There is also puppetry both simple and complex, from simple moving parts to a full doll representing her sister. Finally, there are scenes of Gabrielle interacting with her neighbour, fully immersed in a world more active and less contemplative than that she describes. The result is both sensual and meditative, an opportunity to spend time a place of deep creativity.
The result is that you have a show which manages to capture a way of looking at the world, a perspective. This becomes the tension that draws us through to the end: what did Gabrielle Roy see that summer that made this time so exceptional? It honours creativity and the space to see the world in a new light, however that manifests.
My overwhelming impression of this piece is that it is beautifully crafted. Craftsmanship, to me, means that it has good bones – is put together well in a way which needs to be respected for an objective point of you. Whether or not you like this show, (and I did), you have to admire the expertise it displays. Every element is well considered, from costumes, to stage display, to each moving part. Nobody makes anything like this without really putting in the time to develop their craft. This is a show that blurs the line between visual art and theatre. Any scene could easily be frozen to offer a tableau rich with narrative.
In watching Cet été qui chante, literally “this summer that sang”, I wanted to invite every fringe performer I’ve ever met to learn from this show. I want them to learn how to have fun with materials, how to play with different art mediums, and above all to blend these storytelling techniques into their own multisensory performances. This is experimenting to find a theatrical voice. This is a unique take on performance which needs to be learned from.
Beautiful. Deliberate. Poetic. If you love theatre, you don’t have to like this show in order to benefit from seeing it.
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.
Today was media call for Sick and Twisted theatre’s Merry Crip-Mas Panto at the WECC. The amazing thing about doing theatre criticism is that you can actually go to an event like this and ask questions – because that is what you are supposed to do. With that in mind, the lovely folks at the show were generous enough to share their time and perspectives. Which was more than enough to discover that what they are doing is special in a way that goes far beyond the show they are producing.
Which you should still check out. It looks like it will be funny and out there and amazing. Reviews to come.
What is really remarkable about Sick and Twisted is the way they go about producing shows. According to their own mandate, they make art that “celebrates the vibrancy and impact of inclusive theatre performance”. Inclusive theatre performance in part means using a cast who live with disabilities of some variety. In the conventional narratives that we’re told about disability, that would be the end of the story. I can just see the well meaning commentators saying “Look! Isn’t it so inspirational for people with disabilities to make art?” As though the point was the disability, and any attention given to them an act of charity. That kind of thinking is patronizing, reductive, and (I can not stress this enough) not what this theatre troupe does.
So why does this marginal position matter?
Because these are people who do quality, edgy and interesting work. Who aren’t always able to do it because of accommodation issues.
And if, like me, you were blown away by the caliber of performances Sick and Twisted offers… maybe like me you end up also feeling mad at all the systematic issues that get in the way of seeing these actors on stage more often? Because I’m furious. I’m reminded of Metachroma Theatre in Montreal, whose production of Richard III I reviewed back in 2012. This was a company of actors of colour who wanted to put on shows where their skin colour didn’t impact the roles they got to play. It remains possibly the best Shakespearean play I’ve ever seen. Inclusion isn’t important just because it’s the human thing to do; it also makes for better art.
It also shapes the way the work gets made in a meaningful way. Founder and Artistic Director Debbie Patterson described how they spend time as a company establishing everybody’s accessibility needs before rehearsals even start. Every single person I spoke to made a point of mentioning how supported this made them feel. In my experience, that’s something quite rare to find in any workplace, but especially in the arts where there is all too often the attitude that when you love your work you shouldn’t be distracted by such trivial matters as health, support or even just simple accommodations as needing to eat and pay rent regularly.
Due to being in a supportive environment that is accommodating, the cast can just focus on putting on a subversive show. That subversive edge is also informed from the minority perspective.
“Living with disability, whether it is mobility or chronic pain, or mental or physical, and all of us in this show are living with disability,” says Theresa Thomson, “there’s a darkness that comes with that, and there’s inherently a choice where you can choose to laugh, or you can let the darkness take you. “
Tomorrow I will be reviewing a play, something I’ve done dozens of times in the past. Today I am in awe of the camaraderie and healthy working habits of a group – and that respect will be there regardless of what I think of it.
They have also inspired me to approach this blog in an accessible way. I am also someone who lives with disabilities, and these have often interfered with my ability to do things in a hundred ways, both big and small. At this point I’m starting a theatre blog with confidence that I can do the work required, but there have been many points where that wasn’t possible. Things might come up in the future.
Inspired by Sick and Twisted theatre, I am going to promise to deliver this blog as often and as well as human resources allow. I would love to do extra articles. I want to have bilingual written content. That might not always happen. At the same time, not doing this project because it might not be perfect makes no sense. There is a place for multiple voices.
Curtains Up Winnipeg 