The Nightwood - noble entrepreneurs charm the kids

I’m tired of hearing about Joe the Plumber. The fact that his name is dropped ad nauseam is part of it, but the bulk of the reason is that this unlicensed pipe technician is held up as the little guy entrepreneur whose dreams are going to be crushed by the tax man. A laughable idea considering his six figure income puts him head and shoulders above the majority in terms of financial comfort.

Fortunately, with the US election behind us, the political sideshow it fostered is also over and hopefully Joe will lead the march of attention-grabbing oddities from the past few months back into obscurity. Still, Joe left his mark in that the idea of entrepreneurial spirit is once again newsworthy and a legitimate topic of discussion among pundits, analysts, and everyone else with a seat at the cable news table. For the rest of us, it’s an invitation to take stock of the ‘real’ little guys that work their way from the ground up - sometimes out of necessity, but often purely out of passion - and as any artist knows, the creative community is ripe with such people.

Take for example Toronto’s Backburner Productions. This theatre collective, mostly composed of former York University theatre students, work out of a house which triples as a home base for their company, a performance space and as a residence for their central members. Appropriately, much of their creative output has a do-it-yourself quality that sometimes lacks polish and betrays the still “emerging” status of the talent on hand, yet is endearing for those very same reasons. They are hardly alone in the theatre community in possessing a can-do attitude while working on a shoestring budget, but they are as good an example as any.

Fortunately, Backburner continues to make leaps forward, and their most recent production, The Nightwood, is testament to that fact. Based on the young people’s book by Robin Muller, The Nightwood recounts the tale of a feisty princess who is lured away from the safety of her father’s castle to a magical ball hosted by the not-so-benevolent elven queen.

For this production, Backburner has temporarily abandoned their home base in favour of the wonderful Dufferin Theatre (formerly the Equity Theatre) - a wise decision as it allows them to make use of the space’s openness to great effect, specifically with regards to creating an organic, eerie, and entirely human-generated three dimensional soundscape.

Unfortunately the production does not hold up in other respects. The main sticking point is in the choice of material. Muller’s book, which is thirty-something pages, simply does not provide enough meat to justify Backburner’s two act production, nor does their adaptation include enough silliness to grab children’s attention (one of the strengths of their previous and delightful young people’s show, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) or mature flourishes to satisfy an adult audience member.

What does save the production are the cleverly written and astutely performed meta-theatre jokes that bookend each of the acts. Dropping out of character and exposing the performance for what it is can be hit and miss, but they pull it off expertly, making the sequences the most entertaining part of the show. Their multi-disciplinary style, which includes stilt-walking, masks, dance, puppetry and live music, also adds a lot of effective sensory candy to the experience.

The performances are capable, with Laura Collu and Glyn Bowerman standing out among the sizeable cast. As the evil elven queen, Collu isn’t dealt the most complex role but she plays the icy and seductive monarch with dedication. For me, Bowerman is the undisputed highlight of the show as a wandering fool who weasels his way into the castle walls and gains the princess’ ear. His animated but calculated physicality and boisterous delivery do justice to the most entertaining and well crafted character in the production.

Whatever creative failings there may have been, Backburner deserves credit for one astute box office move: ten dollar tickets. In a city where you can’t throw a tennis ball without hitting a talented but unrecognized artist, getting bums in seats is more than half the battle. The company will just break even off the modest ticket price (and that already comes as something of a surprise to them) but when a ten dollar ticket vs. a twenty dollar ticket means being able to draw a full house which includes the usual gaggle of supportive friends and family as well as strangers willing to give the show a chance, one can see the logic of the decision.

Shrewd business sense aside, theatre is nevertheless an uphill struggle. Regardless of the quality of creative output, there is a certain nobility in the fact that groups such as Backburner are engaged in that struggle in exchange for only the smallest but most satisfying of rewards. So here’s to them: the small companies, the independent artists, the toilers in obscurity and the creative entrepreneurs - may they never have to unclog a toilet to gain the recognition they deserve.

You can find more information about The Nightwood, which has concluded its run, and other Backburner projects here.