Justin's Next Stage Roundup
Intrepid PLANK reviewer Justin Haigh takes on Toronto’s Next Stage Festival which continues this weekend. Here’s Justin’s take on three of the shows featured in this year's Festival.
Red Queen Effect
This stylish ensemble piece loosely inspired by Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice in Wonderland, takes on the corporate environment with surrealism and satire. An elegant black and red production design sets the mood for the story of Alice, an overqualified business school graduate who struggles to maintain her sanity in a work environment ruled by the neuroses of her superiors more than by common sense. It is when Alice gambles by rocking the boat that her co-workers’ true colours are revealed.
Given the news climate, one would expect a dark comedy set in a financial institution to skewer the systemic failings that led to the recent economic collapse, but the script (devised by the ensemble) rather aims for the personalities that occupy said institution - the most inflated of which is Travis, a sort of intense bumbling hybrid between Wall Street’s Gordon Gecko and Seinfeld’s David Puddy. If there is a major issue with the script, it is in the stunted narrative arc. The play as it stands now is a solid act one, but when the hour long show does end, one instinctually expects an intermission and a second act, not a curtain call.
Evocative choreography and intriguing sound effects generated from the stage, such as vocal murmuring and the collective clatter of keyboards add to the style of the piece. Director Kelly Straughan draws some charismatic performances from Monica Dottor (Alice), and Ted Hallett (Travis), and a charmingly docile turn from Nicholas Campbell (Leo).
The Making of St. Jerome
Drawn from real headlines, Marie Beath Badian’s play about the shooting death of a Filipino-Canadian teen at the hands of a plainclothes police officer offers a nuanced and contemplative study of an all too common and culturally divisive occurrence. The now famous Henry Gates incident and subsequent White House beer is a similar, if muted, example of the arguably ongoing struggle between visible minorities and enforcers of authority.
What sets The Making of St Jerome apart from other similar depictions, particularly those in films or on television, is that neither the police officer nor the victim are vindicated and many of the two dimensional stereotypes are shoved to the side. The story is told from the point of view of the victim’s family, specifically Jason, the victim’s brother, and although Jason maintains that there was no reason for the police officer to have drawn his gun, he also reacts against the rose-tinted characterization those around him apply to his less than saintly brother after his passing. In leaving the play’s conclusions in a grey zone, Badian acknowledges that the reality behind these incidents is rarely as one-sided as either the victim’s or the police’s spokespeople claim.
Director Nina Lee Aquino creates a boundary-less flow of the non-chronological scenes, while the cast as a whole deliver capable performances. Sophisticated set and lighting design add a little spit and polish to the otherwise gritty tale.
Quite Frankly
This one man show about a meek outsider is a pleasant character study but suffers from a few too many hang-ups to be called a success. Frank (Justin Sage-Passant), the play’s “hero” is almost totally devoid of personality which certainly makes for an apt caricature of a loser, but does not make for a satisfying protagonist.
A series of short anecdotes, all of them loosely tied to his overbearing mother, offer a watery theme and explanation of Frank’s behavior, but never quite add up to a satisfying narrative. Plodding pacing and sometimes unnecessarily meticulous miming hinder any real sense of storytelling flow from developing.
One scene in which Frank explains the unspoken rules of etiquette of the English pub is a funny and well-crafted departure from the rest of the hour’s monotony.