Skydive: Rises Up above the Parachute Club (the only obligatory can-con reference in this review)
Over the years I’ve added various positions to my artistic name: writer/actor/musician/director. So each time that I leave a movie, concert or play I usually know if I’ve really liked it or not by a few simple reactions. If I’ve loved it, I wish that I'd been part of the production and immediately go home to use the inspiration on my own project.
If I’ve hated it, I become overwhelmingly embarrassed for my profession wishing never to pick up an instrument, script or camera again. After leaving the theatre after seeing *Skydive* (part of the ongoing "PuSh Festival":http://pushfestival.ca/index.php?mpage=home ) I had a totally different reaction, This "Realwheels":http://web.me.com/realwheels/realwheels/Home.html production written by Kevin Kerr and starring James Sanders and Bob Frazer, just be may be one of the coolest plays you see this year.
There’s no question that the star of this play is the spectacle that the ES Dance Instrument creates. This is the device that allows the actors to fly. They swoop, swing, twirl and pretty much do anything you can think of in the air. Yup. Actors flying. Seriously. Click "here":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf7aGyGaTjs to watch. In fact, if you're reading this and you haven't seen *Skydive*, then just go. Go now. For everyone else I suppose for the sake of analysis and my huge Plank paycheck, we’ll dive into this fucker.
The story of the play unfolds in the 30 seconds of a skydiving free-fall gone horribly wrong. Morgan (Sanders) and Daniel (Frazer) are two brothers who we see in flashbacks prior to the jump. Morgan is an 80's child, living off his adolescent dreams of rock stardom, who returns to his childhood home, where Daniel still lives as a reclusive agoraphobe. Morgan, a self prescribed physiologist, decides that what Morgan needs is some therapy, more specifically “paratherapy”. While practising "Lucid Dreaming" they reveal traumatic incidents from their childhood, that begin to play out until the inevitable conclusion when we finally realize what we're watching.
*Skydive* is a return engagement for the 2009 Push Festival after it premiered here in 2007. I can only imagine how many layers they added to a piece that incorporates, script, music, character, movement and dance all into one show. Sven Johansson, who also choreographed, is the creator of the crane like ES Dance Instruments. It's innovation like this that really makes me excited about theatre again, and it should, for the illusive younger market that the Push Festival is trying to reach out to. Combined with a script by Governor General Award winner Kerr, and played out by renowned Jessie winner Frazer, *Skydive* "Kickstarted my Heart", you know, made me really want to "Jump". I suppose it did help that I am an 80's child too, and caught all the clever references throughout, even the subtle use of Marilyn Manson’s cover of "Sweet Dreams" (a 90's reference referencing the 80's. It’s retro retrosity!) The awe moment for me really came when I started to think about how the characters floating and dancing in air, were kind of like puppets being controlled by the strings of the ES machine. During a moment when the characters floated to the back of the stage, the Instruments then swung upstage to us doing a full circle, revealing the Ninja like conductors, who then looked right out and acknowledged us in the crowd. I was floored. Mainly because these Ninja conductors look very similar to the ones that live in my brain controlling my gangly arms and legs. Thankfully, none of them were "American":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAtrYgNut1E (I couldn't resist one more 80's reference).
The characters are heightened in this exaggerated world but Roy Surette and Stephen Drover have directed them into a place where we accept the magic. Bob Frazer is especially adept at moulding his character beyond caricature, unfortunately James Sanders does seem to struggle, but that's a moot point. It's the concept that’s the star here. When I left the show and went home, I didn't find inspiration for my own projects, nor did I rue my artistic ambitions. I just went home, lay on my bed, and dreamt of floating, flying high above the city, and materializing into the cosmos.
_Skydive; written by Kevin Kerr and directed by Roy Surette and Stephen Drover. A Realwheels production. Part of the PuSh Festival. At the Arts Club Granville Island stage. Continues until February 7. Land "here":http://pushfestival.ca/index.php?mpage=shows&spage=main&id=70#show for more information._