Hard Times! – A hard time, indeed

Expectation is the best friend of disappointment, and I would have been better served to check the former at the door. I thought, how can this be anything but awesome, with vaudeville influences, an opera trained singer doing jazz songs, all at the Revue stage? Although this play had its share of charms, ultimately I had a hard time with it.

Bremner Duthie plays The Chaser at a time when the last vaudeville theatre in America is being shut down. Very quickly in the show, he introduces the sage life advice of his long-past partner, Sally: “frivolity is the human race refusing to suffer,” which is a bit of wisdom this production could have learned more from. Replete with endings without end, this play deserved more frivolity and far less suffering. After the inanimate objects with clown noses appeared, just shortly after the dialogue with a rubber chicken, I was thinking about my own ending and how I could hasten it.

Duthie has a beautiful voice and he brings admirable conviction to The Chaser as he contemplates the end of vaudeville and his potentially his life. But the manic, maudlin and bitter character, random Shakespeare quotes and predictable litany of potential ways to commit suicide left me anxious and bored. I wanted more singing and vaudevillian-eque acts and less unrequited sadness.

There is so much to say about that era in our history. The Chaser’s costume and very minimal set pieces set the tone for me to believe I was in the 1930s, but the impressiveness was lost on me, as I was held hostage watching a man spiral downwards without conclusion.. I kept hoping the play would draw some connections to what we are experiencing the in arts in Canada now to the death of vaudeville, but that desire too, was left unfulfilled.

All that said, Duthie’s voice is magical. He has another play in this year’s Fringe lineup, where he sings songs by Piaf and Brel, “Ne Me Quitte Pas.” A fellow Plank reviewer says it’s good. I’d go check that out.