World-renowned visual artist Stan Douglas and acclaimed screenwriter Chris Haddock collaborate to create a production that is at the frontier of new media use in performance.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/theatre-reviews/helen-lawrence-groundbreaking-and-old-fashioned-all-at-once/article17589706/
Inspired by post-war film noir, Helen Lawrence intertwines theatre, visual art, live-action filming and computer-generated simulations in this beautifully crafted suspense-filled tale. As Vancouver struggles to reorganize itself after World War II, forces diverge as to who should really hold the power.
Ibsen’s seminal, late 19th century play, An
Enemy of the People, was, in part, a
response to the public outcry against his earlier play Ghosts, attacking the hypocrisy of Victorian morality with
thinly veiled references to syphilis and familial responsibility. In an age of ebola, AIDS, rampant poverty, and
global warfare against all that threatens the greasy mechanisms of late capitalist excess, An
Enemy of the People becomes a latent,
prophetic war cry in the midst of all that we live with in the twenty first
century. Toronto, in particular, as we prepare to choose a municipal leader who
will either lead us further into - or gradually out of - the pitfalls of
unrestricted urban growth (i.e. unaffordable real estate, gas guzzling
highways, massive and intrusive subway systems) may take note as the current
Tarragon theatre production of Ibsen’s scathing cautionary tale takes the
stage with immense political power and artistic excellence.
Adapted by Florian Borchmeyer and translated by Maria
Milisavljevic, this contemporary version was first seen by director Richard
Rose at the Schaubühne Theatre in Berlin in 2013. In his program note Rose
articulates specific Canadian concerns that relate to the play’s central
narrative theme -
The contemporary take both in adaptation and production
spoke so clearly, so directly and with complexity to the current Canadian
struggle of environment versus economy. Tar sands, climate change, fracking,
pipelines, Walkerton, the cod and salmon fisheries, all came to mind as I
experienced this production. I knew instantly that we had to do it.
With the aid of a brilliant cast and crew, Rose has created
a spectacular one hundred and five minute - no intermission - evening of
explosive social and political action that clips along at a breakneck pace. A
section near the end that raises the houselights and includes audience members
is both entertaining and harrowing as skilled actors stay in character and
challenge any given spectators thoughts on the issues being raised. It is
difficult to single out any one performer as the seven member ensemble creates a
collage of rhythmic highs and lows that literally fill the stage with music,
mayhem, and dark, at times sardonic humor. Ibsen’s text both mocks and attempts to
re-negoiate the complex values of a culture struggling with a social apparatus
that traps its population within diverse and seemingly impossible scenarios.
Perhaps the biggest star of the evening is the set - by Michelle Tracey. An
almost childlike chalkboard studio is created for the action to take place and
to mutate within. Complex set changes have actors playing double duty with
stage management as they re-arrange the rooms with quick and entertaining abandon. A finale of literal white washing is both humorous and
terrifying as people and ideas are splattered and blown out of town -
destroying political ideals and lives for the sake of economic prowess and urban growth.
Small town livelihood is revealed as a satellite product of mammoth urban development, and the contaminated baths of the once pristine village become a symbol
of a global village ablaze with the worst kind of unrestricted growth shrouded
by the dubious notion of industrial progress.
Rick Roberts as Peter and Joe Cobden as Stockmann lock horns
as brothers who can never see eye to eye on what is best for their town. Stock
characters abound as Roberts plays the charismatic corporate type while Cobden
creates an idealistic, gangly version of a doctor attuned to the health of the townspeople as
the most important element of personal and public priority.
When the two actors
engage onstage it is loud, exciting, and pure politically charged
entertainment. Their supporting cast mingles with the story at hand, adding soap
opera’ish twists and turns throughout. Tamara Podemski as Stockmann’s wife
creates a powerful, at times conflicted counterpart to Cobden’s wide eyed
social conscience, while Matthew Edison and Brandon McGibbon create a kind of
newspaper boy team that beguiles with youthful charm at the outset, and then
switches moral codes as the stakes get higher. Tom Barnet’s villainous
presence, interspersed throughout as an almost cartoon’ish comic strip foil,
highlights Richard Rose’s directorial choices as conscious attempts to reveal
the simultaneously shallow depth of the very serious problems at hand.
One leaves the theatre feeling enervated, entertained, and
fully engaged in a timeless, symbolic drama that resonates with an intensely foreboding
tone. And against all odds, depressing times, in the hands of a brilliant production
team, become the fuel for intriguing debate in the form of truly great theatre.
AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE RUNS
AT TARRAGON THEATRE UNTIL
The current proartedanza tenth anniversary season opener is
a stunning display of the company’s work over the past decade. Act I features …in
between (2010) - a powerful collaborative effort from Roberto
Campanella and Robert Glumbeck. Winning the 2011 Dora Award for outstanding
choreography, the piece utilizes two large, malleable, mattress-like props in a
seamless, playful, at times hostile manner that allows dancers to manipulate
each other across a stage filled with diverse play and rambunctious, high energy movement.
Filtered through an obvious impulse to load the performance
space, and the dancers bodies, with overwhelming precision and rapid movement, in
between lays the foundation for a two act
spectacle that has one asking that breathtaking question - how did you just do
that? Limbs appear to move in simultaneously smooth, soft flowing modes and
high pitched elegant flailing. Floating quickly through a variety of gorgeous
musical moments, the overall piece is both moving and humourous, evoking
laughter and poignant reflection at a moment’s notice.
The program notes refer to the “idea of destabilization,
reinvention and resilience [that] are symbolized in a transitory space; a continuum
in which the constant is change.” …in between opens with the mattress like objects appearing as monolithic, wall-like structures that are quickly up-ended, tossed about, thrown on top of
unsuspecting dancers - ultimately becoming mammoth points of initiation and
crisis, marking “a release from one state of being and growth into the next.”
Robert Glumbeck & Anisa Tejpar
Act II manages, against all odds, to follow Act I with equal
abandon, exuberance, and overwhelming energy. The ponderous moments that
frequently mark modern dance - any form of choreography for that matter - can
allow for beautiful breathing spaces that give the overall narrative room to
build varied rhythms. But the nine short pieces that comprise the second half
were clearly not chosen for this sense of ebb and flow. They all exceed in
their obvious need to seamlessly excite the senses with unerring bravado. Moments
of male-on-male twerk-like camaraderie and parodic self-conscious machismo mix
with gorgeous solo virtuosic presentations. All of the dancers work together to
create a breakneck pacing and uniform precision that highlights the stylistic
choices in each separate piece.
Anisa Tejpar’s solo turn in Robert Glumbeck’s Subsistence
is a highlight nearing the finale of a
second half that never strays from the evenings overall sense of intense energy,
poignancy, and play. Tejpar has the ability to enthrall with her impeccable take on bodily precision. Her signature style, in Subsistence, peaks with elegantly manic mannerisms and explosive physical prowess. She is everywhere all at once as her body fully inhabits a huge playing space and a physically challenging piece of gorgeous choreography. There are moments when the non-stop action of act II suggests an indirect
rebirth/re-invention of slaughter on tenth avenue whereby 21st century cultural
and aesthetic phrasing renders gender as a complex disappearing act. Men and women
rage about the stage with the freedom and the agility to re-invent themselves as
they mix, mingle, and mimic everyday gestures that, in the hands of a brilliant array of dancers and choreographers, become a stunning and overpowering display of proartedanza's decade long commitment to "passion in performance."
Marc Cardarelli & Anisa Tejpar
PROARTEDANZA'S TENTH ANNIVERSARY SEASON OPENER RUNS AT THE FLECK DANCE THEATRE (HARBORFRONT) UNTIL OCTOBER 4TH
