Published Sep 21, 2022 • Last updated Sep 21, 2022 • 3 minute read
The
moment you strap yourself in, you know you’re in for some jump scares
and gasps, and you suspect you’ll be squirming and perhaps even
screaming, but that’s why you bought your ticket.
The
great news is that director Jamie Dunsdon and actors Anna Cummer,
Haysam Kadri and Curt McKinstry don’t disappoint for a moment. They get
some help in creating Misery’s 100 minutes of mood, mystery and mayhem
from lighting designer Anton DeGroot and sound designer Dewi Wood.
There’s creepy music to heighten the building suspense, thunder and
lightning to punctuate the scariest moments and lighting that shows us
only what Dunsdon wants us to see so she and her actors can pull the rug
out from under us. Things definitely go bump in the night in this
little nightmare of obsession and revenge.
Stephen
King’s celebrated 1987 novel is the story of Paul Sheldon, a popular
gothic romance novelist who, in a drunken stupor, wrecks his car on a
remote winter road in Colorado only to be rescued by Annie Wilkes, his
self-proclaimed biggest fan. She sets his broken legs and administers a
steady dose of painkillers to relieve his agony.
It’s
not long before Paul realizes Annie, his angel of mercy, is a deranged
stalker and that he is not her patient but her prisoner, and he must
out-manipulate her if he is ever going to get out of her house alive.
In
2015, William Goldman, who wrote the screenplay for the 1990 movie
which starred Kathy Bates and James Caan, wrote the stage version
currently at Vertigo until Oct. 15. He wisely tempers the story’s
increasingly macabre events with gallows-style humour. He not only
allows but encourages laughter and that is what makes his Misery so much
fun. Dunsdon mines all those laughs to take the audience off-guard so
she can create a barrage of suspense, thrills, and scares.
Cummer
does not start out playing Annie as a monster but rather as a shy,
socially awkward recluse. It’s only when Annie discovers her favourite
character in Paul’s Misery series dies in what is meant to be the final
book, that she becomes unhinged. Watching Cummer make that transition is
mesmerizing and genuinely chilling. It’s what makes Cummer’s actions so
believable when Annie goes from taunting Paul to torturing him so he
will write a new Misery novel that resurrects her beloved character.
In
Kadri’s hands, Paul is no angel either. His sarcasm, which emerges
quickly, is cruel and his initial reactions of disbelief are hilarious.
It’s only when Paul realizes just how dire his situation is that Kadri’s
fear becomes palpable. When he finally twigs into the fact this is a
do-or-die situation, so does the audience.
It’s
when Paul tries to escape from the bedroom that is his prison that the
other genuine star of Vertigo’s Misery makes itself known. Scott Reid’s
set is mind-blowing. When Annie goes to town to buy more typing paper,
Paul, who is confined to a wheelchair, finds a way to unlock the bedroom
door. As he goes through the door, Reid’s set begins to turn, taking
Paul down a hallway and into the kitchen. It even turns further whenever
McKinstry’s good old-boy local policeman Buster comes snooping around
to bring Annie and the audience outside the house.
As is
the case with the best theme park rides, you have so much fun that you
want to take them again and that is very much the case with Vertigo’s
Misery. This is world-class escapism.
Postcard review by Caroline Russell-King
Show – Misery
Playwright – William Goldman, based on the novel by Stephen King.
Production Company/Theatre space – The Playhouse, Vertigo Theatre.
Length – Full-length (1 hours, 45 mins, no intermission)
Genre/s – Drama/Horror
Premise – After being injured in a car accident a novelist is held captive by a mentally unstable woman professing to be his number one fan, to control him to restore life to the eponymous protagonist in his Misery book series.
Why this play? Why now? – Stephen King is one of the world’s most successful writers in his genre and is a name brand that can be trusted. After us all of us being “locked up” for the past while this play has a slightly different resonance.
Curiosities – Why do we humans laugh so much as a response to fear and tension? So much laughter, but all of it an apt response. Why does the dirty rag go back with the clean clothes?
Notable Moment – Ironically the catch phrase most used in theatre is “break a leg.”
Notable writing – William Goldman is an esteemed and lauded screenwriter, novelist, and playwright and this is a skilled adaptation.
Notable performances – Haysam Kadri gives a painful (in the best possible way) performance as Paul Sheldon the novelist and victim. Anna Cummer embodies evil personified as Annie his capturer and torturer. Curt McKinstry as Buster the Sherriff completes this perfect trio.
Notable design/Production – Scott Reid designed the quintessential set. His designs are so intelligent. Anton DeGroot’s lighting plot is excellent. Dewi Woods sound design is a little distracting at times but overall still complimentary.
Notable direction – Jamie Dunsdon does a superb job keeping all the tension in the script. Her talent crackles like the real flames on the stage.
One reason to see this show – There is a reason that Vertigo has seasons ticket holders that renew year after year, you won’t want to miss this one.
Caroline Russell-King is a member of the Canadian Theatre Critics Association
Review: Candid, honest story underlying all the fun at Bliss the Birthday Party
After seeing Jamie Dunsdon’s Bliss (the birthday party play) which
she wrote and performs in, I’m not sure if I’m more in awe of Jamie the
playwright, Jamie the performer or Jamie the remarkable, beautiful
person who bares her soul so winningly for 75 minutes.
Dunsdon,
who is artistic director of Verb Theatre which is co-producing Bliss
with One Yellow Rabbit for the 2020 High Performance Rodeo, begins her
monologue apologizing for not being an actor. She explains she feels
more confident directing but decided that because this is her story she
needed to throw caution to wind.
It’s a ruse because it quickly
becomes evident Dunsdon is a consummate, confident, charismatic
storyteller who takes her audience on a journey that one moment is
lively and funny and the next cautiously serious and brutally
insightful. There are some entirely unexpected twists and turns in this
journey, so take Bette Davis’ advice from her movie All About Eve and
fasten your seat belt because it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Bliss is the kind of show where the less you know, the greater its impact so I won’t spoil any of the surprises.
Dunsdon’s premise in Bliss is it’s impossible to un-know
something. Once you’ve learned for instance what the actual ingredients
are in hotdogs it’s forever a part of your vocabulary whether you want
it to be or not. The same became true for Dunsdon who was raised on a
farm near Coaldale on subjects as diverse as death and Santa Claus.
Director
Karen Hines has Dunsdon use members of the audience to be fellow
students at a junior high party and to play her mother and it’s an
effective, fun ploy because there’s nothing threatening about the roles
these people play.
Bliss is being presented in the tiny Studio
Theatre at the Grand and set designer Hanne Loosen ensures this
marvellous theatre space really does feel like a birthday party. There
are tables rather than banks of seats and there are balloons everywhere.
The balloons are much more than decoration. They play an important part
in Dunsdon’s storytelling. There’s a bar at one end of the room serving
alcoholic and non alcoholic beverages and at the end of the play there
is confetti birthday cake and rainbow jello slices.
Dunsdon has
been working on the script for Bliss for almost two years and it shows.
It’s beautifully constructed with stunning images that will definitely
linger and, though your heart will understandably and rightfully go out
to Dunsdon, she never asks for sympathy or praise.
Bliss is an
important experience because it is so honest, candid and heartfelt but,
just as important, it is funny, theatrical and respectful. It should not
be missed but, I guarantee word of mouth will ensure the remaining
performances of Bliss will sell out.
Bliss (the birthday party play)
Written and performed by Jamie Dunsdon
Directed by Karen Hines
Designed by Hanne Loosen
Studio Theatre at the Grand
Until Jan. 12
FOUR STARS
Review: An updated Tempest adds more nuance to Shakespeare's story of reconciliation
The current movement in staging Shakespeare is to use more women
in roles traditionally played by men and even to change the genders of a
play’s major character.
This entails everything from women
wearing men’s clothing, beards and moustaches to women putting an
androgynous spin on characters. Sometimes it works and sometimes it
doesn’t.
The Shakespeare Company’s production of The Tempest as
directed by Jamie Dunsdon changes the sex of several major characters
and it works beautifully, adding nuance but always preserving the heart
of what is often considered Shakespeare’s swan song and one of his
finest achievements.
In the original, Prospero, robbed of his
title as duke of Milan and almost his life by a scheming younger brother
Antonio, is exiled with his infant daughter to a remote island
inhabited only by sprites and the monster spawn of a witch.
Dunsdon
has turned the exiled ruler into Prospera (Shawna Burnett) and it makes
so much sense because she is pitted against powerful men and therefore
must rely on her magic books to give her the edge. Burnett makes Prospera fiercely protective of her daughter
Miranda (Anna Dalgleish) and staunchly determined to give her a better
life. At times, there is the sense of a lioness protecting her cub
because there is a wildness and unpredictability about Burnett.
The
storm at the beginning of the play that Prospera uses to bring her
adversaries to the island is not the only tempest. Burnett shows us the
storm raging in her mind as she keeps going back and forth between
revenge and reconciliation. There are moments when Burnett grabs her
head as if it is about to burst.
Prospera’s greatest ally on the
island is the sprite Ariel (Alice Wordsworth), whom she rescued from the
clutches of the witch. By making Ariel female, Dunsdon turns the sprite
into a kind of adopted daughter whose is torn between wanting her
freedom and desiring to be mothered. Because she makes Ariel so
beautifully childlike, Wordsworth creates genuine sympathy for this
magical creature who is torn by her two wishes.
Dunsdon’s choice
to change the sex of the faithful servant who helped Prospera escape is
an excellent touch. Now, Gonzala (Valerie Ann Pearson) is the equivalent
of Juliet’s nurse in Romeo & Juliet and Pearson plays her with both
sternness and humour. The reunion of Prospera and Gonzala is especially
poignant.
Perhaps the most daring decision was to turn the
sibling of King Alonso (Myron Dearden) into Sebastiana (Brianna
Johnston). Now the plotting between Sebastiana and Antonio (Devin
MacKinnon) becomes sexually charged.
The clowns Trinculo (Michael
Rolfe) and Stephano (Alexander Ariate) are particularly bawdy while the
monster Caliban (Jonathan Molinski) is more conflicted than evil so it’s
pitiful when Trinculo and Stefano get him drunk and mock him.
As
Ferdinand, the King’s son and Miranda’s love interest, Daniel Fong is
wonderfully youthful especially in the courtship scene with Miranda. The
log scene, as it is often called, is really the balcony scene from
Romeo & Juliet and Fong is all bestirred passion and spry eagerness.
Dalgleish has made Miranda a contemporary woman and that doesn’t work
as well because Shakespeare saw her as the essence of innocence.
The
Tempest is a play about forgiveness and reconciliation and Dunsdon and
her cast have found many ways to make it heartfelt and uplifting. It’s
not as much of a spectacle as it could be, but it is still magical.
THE TEMPEST
The Shakespeare Company and Hit & Myth Productions
At the Studio at Vertigo until Oct. 5
Starring Shawna Burnett
FOUR STARS
There is still a great deal of spring and snap in Deathtrap, Ira
Levin’s 40-year-old stage thriller and Vertigo Theatre has graced it
with a crackerjack production.
Deathtrap is the story of Sidney
Bruhl, a one-hit wonder thriller playwright looking to recapture his
moment of glory and the cash it brought with it.
For too many
years now, Sidney has been living off his wife Myra’s fortune but that
has all but run out given the extravagant lifestyle they’ve lived.
On
the day we meet Sidney (Mark Bellamy) and Myra (Barbara Gates Wilson)
he is ranting because Clifford Anderson (Tyrell Crews) a student from
his summer university writing course has sent Sydeny a dynamite stage
thriller called Deathtrap.
In Sidney’s own words Deathtrap is a
thriller worth killing for and it doesn’t take a master sleuth to guess
who’ll be invited out to the Bruhl’s remote country home.
The
lasting appeal in Deathtrap is that it’s so murderously clever and
ferociously funny it doesn’t matter if you’ve seen a stage or film
version of it already.
You’ll laugh and shudder and scream and squirm along with the people who are experiencing it for the first time.
It helps immensely that everything about Vertigo’s production from casting and direction to design is so dead on.
David
Fraser’s set looks and performs as if it is entirely liveable even
featuring a fireplace that tricks us into believing it’s burning all
those unwanted papers.
Fraser has also crafted some most credible
weapons to adorn the walls, some of which will be used before the final
curtain. His lighting design, particularly during the obligatory storm
sequence, sets the mood for some creepy thrills especially given Andrew
Blizzard’s authentic sound design.
Director Jamie Dunsdon is to be
applauded for her decision not to use blackouts between scenes
especially in the first act preserving the tension and suspense.
Instead, she has given the actors stage business that would normally be
done by stage hands in the dark. It’s very effective as is her decision
to play the heightened melodrama in Levin’s script. We know these are
not real people in real situations so why not have as much fun with them
and their situations as possible. What really traps the audience in Vertigo’ Deathtrap are the performances.
All
Levin’s wonderfully vicious dialogue for Sidney just comes trippingly
off Bellamy’s tongue. It never sounds forced or artificial. This is the
way the man thinks and speaks and Bellamy makes us believe in every
devilish thing Sidney suggests and eventually does.
Crews
initially plays Clifford as the wide-eyed innocent but there’s always a
hint there’s more to this aspiring playwright than meets the eye. It’s
such fun watching Crews peel away the layers of Clifford’s facades.
Wilson
is not about to play second fiddle to her two male costars which is
possible with the role of the wife. Watching the terror mount in her
body language and voice as she begins to believe her husband might just
kill for that script is as creepy as it is fun. The more Gates believes
in Sidney’s machinations the more the audience does.
Levin has
written a scene stealing. show stopping character named Helga Ten Dorp, a
European psychic who has rented the cottage across the meadow from the
Bruhl’s and Dundson has invited Karen Johnson-Diamond to inhabit her.
That was a stroke of genius because Johnson-Diamond delivers the kind of
scenery chewing, crowd-pleasing extravagance the play needs and she
tops it all off with her Bride of Frankenstein hairdo in the final
scene.
As Sidney’s bedraggled and misbegotten lawyer Porter Milgrim, Kevin Corey is beautifully understated.
Deathtrap
is a bit too long and a bit too wordy but that is not Vertigo’s fault.
Everyone on board has done their best to polish this gem of a thriller.
Deathtrap runs in Vertigo’s theatre at the base of the Calgary tower until Feb. 24.
There
is already limited seating for many of the remaining performances so it
is best to check out tickets.vertigo.com for best available seating.
DEATHTRAP
Vertigo Theatre until Feb. 24
Directed by Jamie Dunsdon
Designed by David Fraser
FOUR STARS
A stellar ensemble deftly captures the realism of youth in The Wolves
Is it just me, or are teenagers the main source of sanity in the
world these days? From Parkland survivors and the March for Our Lives to
Ontario students walking out of class to protest archaic curriculum
changes, so-called “teen activism” is one of the only bright spots in
the news lately. But that mess of hormones and half-cooked
neurophysiology means that they’re a mercurial lot, too — if you’ve
spent extended time with a teenager, you know that sometimes the TV
remote seems like too much responsibility. American playwright Sarah Delappe’s award-winning play The Wolves
captures that paradox in the most deft and unassuming way. The play is
about nine high school students on a girls’ under-18 soccer team, and
takes place during their pre-game warm-ups over a six-week span of
Saturday mornings. As they stretch and conduct drills, they do what
teenage girls do — talk. During warm-ups, the girls’ conversations range
from whether it’s OK to feel sorry for a 90-year-old Khmer Rouge leader
facing life in prison for crimes against humanity, to showering scorn
on their never-seen coach, who is perennially hung over for their games.
They gossip about one of their teammates who may or may not have had an
abortion, and rail against the injustices suffered by Central American
children in US detention centres. The players are identified only by number and position until the
final scene. There’s #46, who is new in town and weirdly keeps calling
soccer “football.” They speculate about how she can possibly live in a
yogurt, until she informs them that the word is “yurt.” There’s #2, who
is making and selling scarves for Amnesty International in support of
those Central American children, and also hiding an eating disorder. And
#7 is described in the casting notes as “too cool for school,” and is
accustomed to being the superstar striker on the team until #46 arrives. This co-production between Verb Theatre and Calgary Young People’s
Theatre is a true ensemble, with no one character emerging as the lead.
The actors are high school students, like the characters they play, and
this is a challenging text. But there are no real weak links in the cast
— similarly, the balanced and interconnected nature of the characters
means that it isn’t possible to single out any individuals as more
engaging than the others. Director Jamie Dunsdon has done a nice job of
weaving together the multiple character threads into a cohesive whole.
Each scene is framed around warm-ups and drills that are simply
choreographed, making the athleticism an unspoken but important part of
the story without having to address the challenge of staging an actual
game. There is a great deal in this story that is suggested and implied
rather than openly stated, and the impact is greater for it. The play features Robert Altman-style overlapping dialogue that is
executed with variable success. At times, it genuinely has the feeling
of a crowded room in which your ear lands on different threads of
conversation at different times. But there are lengthy stretches of
chaos in which it’s simply noise with no clear content. There is some
realism in that, of course, and it doesn’t happen often enough that it
draws you out of the narrative. There may be some character development
opportunities that are missed as a result, but there is so much meat on
these bones that it doesn’t affect the momentum of the story. This was a first play for Delappe, and perhaps some of the immediacy
of the text comes from the fact that she wrote it in her mid-20s, when
the late teens weren’t that far in the rearview mirror. But her ear for
realistic dialogue is flawless, and demonstrates a careful observation
of the ways that character and language shape each other. It’s easy to
see why she was a Pultizer-finalist for this play, and I can’t wait to
see what she does next. (Photo courtesy Verb Theatre.) The Wolves plays at the West Village Theatre until October 13. For tickets, visit www.cypt.ca or www.verbtheatre.com
____________________________________
THE RETURN OF THE CRITTERS: THEATRE CRITICS AWARDS
"Jamie Dunsdon staged the drama Blackbird, David
Harrower’s chilling look at the twisted emotions and devastating effect
of a relationship between an adult male and a 12-year-old girl. The
story was told with unflinching honesty but it is the direction Dunsdon
is taking Verb Theatre that continues to impress us. She takes chances,
pushes envelopes and challenges her audiences."
David Harrower’s Blackbird is the theatrical
equivalent of walking on thin ice for the playwright, director, actors
and audience. If anyone tries too hard to make a point, the cracks in the premise of this story will betray them. Blackbird
is the story of a fierce encounter between Ray (Curt McKinstry) a man
in his mid 50s and Una (Camille Pavlenko) the girl he seduced 15 years
earlier when she was 12. Una says she
spied Ray in a group picture in an article in a magazine she was reading
in a doctor’s office and decided to track him down and confront him
about their past relationship. She has
come to his office building at the end of the day and he has spirited
her away to the staff cafeteria in the basement as far as possible from
prying eyes. Mckinstry,
Pavlenko and director Jamie Dunsdon establish the razor-edged tension
in this encounter the moment the two people enter the room. He is all wild eyed and rigid. She is jittery but defiant. Over
the next 75 minutes, the power dynamic between Ray and Una will shift
and so will the audience’s evaluation of them and of their illicit,
illegal relationship. At various times,
both Ray and Una will try to describe what happened as a tragic love
story and, even 15 years after the fact, they each will try to justify
their actions and emotions, then and now. What’s
vital for any viewing of Blackbird is to keep an image of a
`12-year-old Una and not the current 27-year-old in mind during these
discussions. Eventually both Ray and Una
will give their version of what happened the night they went to a guest
house to consummate their relationship and she was left wandering the
streets of the town until she was discovered and harboured by a couple
walking their dog. That was the night Ray was arrested and charged, sending him to jail for three years. The
set with all its Venetian blinds, which Dunsdon also designed, suggests
a cage. It is the ideal setting for this raw, animal encounter. At
first Dunsdon has McKinstry and Pavlenko almost stalk one another
keeping their distance as they lash out, attack and retreat. It’s
unsettling but not nearly as unnerving as when they start closing gaps
coming closer to each other with the lingering possibility they might
actually touch or even embrace becoming a possibility. Pavlenko keeps us guessing about Una’s motives in confronting Ray and that’s essential. She
might be there for closure because their relationship has seemingly
warped her ability to love or possibly even find satisfaction in a
sexual encounter. She might be there for revenge by destroying the life Ray has managed to build for himself. She could even be there to win him back. McKinstry
keeps the audience guessing as to whether Ray was and possibly still is
a sexual predator or whether he was a weak man seduced by a precocious
child. Dunsdon, McKinstry and Pavlenko
make the play’s devastating extended climax a stunner from the moment
Ray and Una almost destroy the lunchroom to the moment one of them
leaves the cage. Blackbird has won major
accolades on both sides of the Atlantic and watching this Verb Theatre
production it’s easy to understand why.
BLACKBIRD
By David Harrower Produced by Verb Theatre Directed and designed by Jamie Dunsdon At the Arts Commons Motel Theatre until Nov. 18 FOUR STARS
Verb Theatre’s ‘Blackbird’ is an uncomfortable story worth watching
Review written by Jenna Shummoogum
Sexual assault. Sexual abuse. Sex with a minor. It’s all over the news right now and it makes it a particular fitting time for Blackbird
by David Harrower. The play is an intense 75 minutes, produced by Verb
Theatre in the small space of the Motel theatre. It has the audience up
close to the uncomfortable narrative, squished up against the ideas of
abuse, desire and morality. Blackbird is a play that’s doesn’t live in the clean cut ideas of wrong and right.
The play tells of Una (Camille Pavlenko) who comes to find Ray (Curt
McKinstry) at his work. She saw a picture in a magazine of him and his
work team and looked him up. It was a 6 hour drive and now they are in a
staff room, looking at each other, with so much to say and so much that
they can’t say. The room is all blinds that cover windows, with a table
in the center and garbage strewed everywhere. The staff don’t keep it
clean and this serves as a metaphore to Ray and Una’s lives. Ray got
involved in an illegal relationship with Una when she was 12 years old
and they have both been haunted by this decision ever since.
Jamie Dunston designed the set, with damaged window blinds on either
side of the windows in the play and they are lit in red. It’s a simple
set that points to the damage to these two people. Pavlenko and
McKinstry are hurt and pain and raw emotion but are also measured in
their performances. Their performances allow the audience to see the
deep conflict within them. The dialog is a bit halting and unnatural to
begin with, but then it smooths out. Dunston also directs the show,
allowing the tension to ebb and flow.
It would be really easy to just assume that everyone who commits an
act like this goes to jail and the story ends. And that’s often how the
story is portrayed. They get punished and we don’t hear about them
again. This is a story continuing, this is the rest of that story. It
isn’t comfortable and it isn’t easy, but it’s a something worth talking
about.
Verb Theatre’s Blackbird runs until November 18. More information is available online.
Published on: February 8,
2015Last Updated: February 8, 2015 9:36 PM MST
Standing in line at IKEA is a bit of an awkward
place to bring up the subject of having a baby, but really, what’s not an
awkward place to have that conversation?
That conversation is the essence of Lungs,
British playwright Duncan MacMillan’s engaging comedy of ideas that opened
Thursday night at Motel.
Wait. Did I say essence? What I meant to say was
entirety, because playwright MacMillan’s script comes with a few unique
requests, namely that each production — which was a hit in London, New York and
at Toronto’s Tarragon Theatre in 2014 — feature no props, sets, costume changes
or even miming to indicate place and time and weather and whatnot — all the
stuff actors do in plays to articulate the world of the story.
Instead, we get M (Kyle Jespersen), a cool,
semi-employed musician dude in his thirties, and F (Anna Cummer), a smart,
attractive 30-something Ph.D candidate, having a debate about whether or not it’s
selfish to bring children into the world, given the state of the environment (F’s
doctorate has some sort of relationship to environmental science).
Or maybe I should say F talks and M listens,
because for the first ten minutes of Lungs, Cummer delivers a memorable stream
of consciousness monologue about the pros and cons of having a child at this
moment in history, counterpointing it with her own female mythology around
childbirth. They are ten of the more astonishing minutes you will ever see on a
stage.
Cummer has this conversation with herself — her
body versus her head, her heart versus her political consciousness- as much as
she does with M.
Jespersen’s M, meanwhile, somehow manages to nod,
listen, nod some more — and along the way, communicates every bit as much about
M’s (male?) personality, his compassion, his anxieties and his excitement, as he
would were he pouring out his guts in a torrent of words just like F is doing.
The scene feels ripped from real life, a
theatrical wiretap, really, of contemporary life for a certain creative class
type.
The storytelling in Lungs might be minimalist in
presentation, but the actors are hardly static. Without so much as a prop or
set, the play moves from IKEA, to the car, to the couple’s condominium, various
coffee shops, a nightclub and elsewhere.
It also travels through time, tracing the pair’s
emotional arc as they go about the less than glamorous business of growing up,
and before you know it, half a decade has passed.
It really shouldn’t work. After all, how much
couples exploration can one audience take without a single diversion for the
eye? How much can we listen to Cummers’ F rant and rage, as she pours out a
litany of what could only constitute First-World woes?
But, led by Verb Theatre co-artistic director
Jaime Dunsdon’s canny un-direction, Lungs grabs you by the lapels and never
lets up until it reaches its denouement, 90 minutes later.
Stripped of all manner of artifice, the play produces
a pair of dazzling performances from Jespersen and Cummer.
With MacMillan’s smart, funny, brave script as
its base, and Cummer and Jespersen bringing it to vivid, if occasionally
painful life, Lungs makes for an emotionally turbulent — and ultimately,
entertaining — night at the theatre.
Review
Verb Theatre presents Lungs
at Motel through February 14
Tickets at verbtheatre.com or at the door
Four stars out of five
shunt@calgaryherald.com
twitter.com/halfstep
Loving Verb Theatre’s ‘Lungs’ is as easy as breathing
The young couple in Duncan
MacMillan’s Lungs are having a conversation about having a baby. It
starts in IKEA and brings on an anxiety attack for the woman (played by Anna
Cummer) leaving the man (played by Kyle Jespersen) to try and deal with the
complete meltdown that follows. Because once you open the box about starting a
family, you can’t put it back. There is the planet to think about, the carbon
footprint created by having a baby. The problem of overpopulation and diapers
filling the landfill – they want to have a baby for the right reasons.
And the anxiety coming from the
woman is enough to make your head spin. And it bleeds in to everything, their
sex life, their relationship with their families, how they feel about bringing
another human being into the world. Most people don’t give that much thought to
the prospect of having kids. And there are a lot of things to think about that
the play delves into, hard and fast. At some point the woman asks “am I being
crazy here?” and he responds with “you’re somewhere on the spectrum.” Lungs is
a story of a couple of people who feel very deeply and don’t actually take a
moment to breathe. When you live in your head too much, then the world can
start to unravel.
The story is told on a raised
stage, with no sound design, lighting design (except for the end) or props.
Each scene bleeds into the other at a speed that doesn’t feel rushed but doesn’t
pause either. It tells of a very honest, lovely story of two people who just
want to do the right thing.
Cummer and Jespersen are a good
pair who embody their characters and bring the play to life. With no other
elements to lean on, they have only each other to move the play along and they
don’t falter. It wouldn’t be the right decision to miss Verb Theatre’s Lungs.
Verb Theatre’s Lungs runs
at Motel in Arts Commons until Valentine’s Day. More information is available online.
Emotions born from barest of plays will have you mesmerized
FIRST POSTED: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 05,
2015 01:39 PM MST | UPDATED: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 05, 2015 01:44 PM MST
I’m not quite sure if it’s what
British playwright Duncan MacMillan wanted me to take away from his
internationally acclaimed drama Lungs but I had the distinct feeling he was
suggesting intellectuals should not have children.
His couple, referred to only as F
(Anna Cummer) and M (Kyle Jespersen), spend way too much time debating the
prospect of having a child.
She keeps insisting they are having
conversations but their chats come off far more like debates, arguments and
fights.
You just wish they’d hop into bed and
get on with it instead of talking about it ad infinitum (or at least that’s how
I felt) but I’m pretty certain that’s precisely the reaction MacMillian wants.
Lungs, which is having its Calgary
premiere courtesy of Verb Theatre until Feb. 14, is essentially a play of words.
Theatre is about dialogue but Lungs
is a play comprised of one 83-minute extended dialogue that covers a decade of
this couple’s life and more when you factor in the final 10 minutes of the
show.
Cummer and Jespersen don’t stop their
conversation just because an hour, day, week, month or year has passed but the
writing is so clever and their performances so astute that the audience is
always aware of the passage of time.
As I sat mesmerized by Cummer and
Jespersen’s performances I couldn’t help think how exhausting this play could
be in the hands of lesser-skilled actors.
There are so many pitfalls and sand
traps awaiting actors who dare to tackle Lungs not the least of which is the
fact it’s written by a man.
This means that Cummer has to take
the brunt of the responsibility for the delays, setbacks and emotional
hurricanes that occur in the relationship.
Cummer cries a great deal yet she
never begs for the audience’s sympathy.
If you’ve ever watched a stranger
crying uncontrollably in public, you have an inkling of what it’s like watching
Cummer and eventually Jespersen bare their characters’ souls for you.
For Cummer in particular it is a
brave, honest performance as heart-wrenching as it is frustrating and annoying,
again, maybe just for me but there were times I had to bite my tongue to keep
from telling Cummer what she was doing to my patience and nerves.
Jespersen has a teddy-bear look about
him which gives him an edge in most of the confrontations and debates but when he
does explode or break down into tears it’s devastating.
Navigating MacMillian’s words with
such fearless precision and insight, Cummer, Jespersen and their director Jamie
Dunsdon put my emotions through the wringer … so I really needed that glass of
wine I tackled when I got home.
Lungs is theatre stripped of such
physical trappings as sets, props, lighting, sound effects and music.
It’s about words and the emotional
impact they can have on our partners and especially on interlopers like
audience members who really shouldn’t be privy to such candid conversations.
Lungs is being presented in the Arts
Common’s intimate Motel Theatre so it’s almost impossible to feel isolated or
distant from the emotional roller coaster that’s happening in front of you.
Presented by Verb Theatre, Duncan
MacMillan’s gripping play Lungs stages the story of F (Anna Cummer)
and M (Kyle Jespersen), a well-educated couple in their thirties. One day,
while in line at Ikea, M puts forward the idea of having a child. From this moment,
a turbulent, uninterrupted conversation surrounding the ramifications of
bringing a baby into the world – a world already strained for resources –
begins and follows into the next several days, months, and years.
Per MacMillan’s explicit stage
instructions, there is no set nor are there any props. What there is plenty of
though is a lot of talk, and a lot of talk about talking.
Over and over again, F justifies to
herself (and M) why the couple should not bring a child into the world. Think
of the environment, F says, citing the impact one whole person’s carbon
footprint has on the Earth. Then, switching her position, F reasons why the
couple are allowed to have a child, citing primarily the fact they are not only
are they good people, but they are also very aware.
The whole play reads as a sharp
criticism of slacktivism. F and M self-identify as well-informed citizens based
off how much they (claim to) read. And that is enough for them to separate
themselves from the masses. In other words, because the couple knows better,
then they cannot be part of the problem. F and M equate not only knowledge with
responsibility, but also as a form of action in itself. Unfortunately, for all
their awareness, they fail to participate in any meaningful action to help the
world. They only talk about what they have done or plan to do – the latter
being subject to whether or not they have a child.
And it is this shallow satisfaction
with themselves that sets the couple up for heartbreak when they are hit hard,
very hard, with the realization that the world is indifferent to them, no
matter how many trees they intend to plant.
In this way, MacMillan reflects back to
us our growing complacency in the digital age. For MacMillan, awareness is not
enough. Using a hashtag or sharing a video is only a small step in creating
change. In this world, which goes on with or without us, what truly matters is
action; knowledge put in practice.
With regards to the script, MacMillan
offers no escape from what is born out of a simple conversation. He holds
nothing back in this emotional roller coaster that punches forward on a track
bent in every direction, leaving its audience speechless by the end.
And thankfully, Cummer and Jespersen
match the velocity of MacMillan’s fearless script. Cummer is fantastic in
drawing out so many emotions from the audience. And there is this one powerful
moment, which demands to be seen, where Cummer simply nails it. Never has a
theatre gone so quiet. And Jespersen is there with Cummer every step of the
way. Rarely do a pair respond to and match so well what the other brings to the
table.
Running at Motel Theatre, Verb
Theatre’s arresting production of Duncan MacMillan’s Lungs is one
not to miss.
Verb Theatre’s production of Duncan
MacMillan’s Lungs runs at Motel Theatre (Arts Commons), Feb 5-14, 2015.
For more information on the show and
how to purchase tickets,
visit: http://www.verbtheatre.com/season/
The Dandelion Project
No wilting for actress playing 12 characters in The Dandelion Project
Verb Theatre's The Dandelion Project is as compelling as it is insightful but most what surprises most is how wistful it is. This quite a feat considering that The Dandelion Project is about doctor assisted suicide and euthanasia. Two days ago I would have said the play was about dying with dignity but The Dandelion Project puts a new spin on that concept and several others associated with this hot button topic.Verb's co-artistic director Col Cseke interviewed doctors, activists and terminally ill patients and their family members and then whittled down these interviews into a 90-minute verbatim docudrama. Cseke weaves the interviews together in a fractured manner to give the evening plenty of heightened drama and even some gentle humour. The spark of genius that makes the evening work so well is Monice Peters who plays all 12 characters in The Dandelion Project. Let me rephrase that. Peters becomes all 12 characters.
With precise body language and vocal nuances Peters transforms effortless from a sweet bubbly daughter-in-law of a woman planning her own death to a gruff male activist who just wants to give the facts about what it was like to accompany a a 40-year-old terminally ill man to Switzerland to a clinic that specializes in assisted deaths.
At one point, Peters plays three different physicians engaged in ethical and personal debates.
To her immense credit, director Jamie Dunsdon does not just plunk Peters on stage and let her talk as is quite often the case in solo shows. She provides her with a beautiful set, all greens and yellows like a dandelion and has Peters move the chair and table around. She gives her yellow props and costume pieces which Peters transforms into shalls, blankets and even a baby.
Cseke, Dunsdon and Peters do not try to minimize the importance and sensitive nature of assisted death but they never allow the monologues to become maudlin or morose. This is a powerful piece of theatre which deserves to be done all over the world and Calgarians are getting the chance to see the Dandelion Project in its infancy until June 22 in the Epcor Centre's intimate Motel Theatre.
THE DANDELION PROJECT
Verb Theatre at the Motel Theatre until June 22
Starring Monice Peters
**** (out of 5)
Monice Peter brings vibrancy to heavy issue of assisted suicide in The Dandelion Project
By Stephen Hunt, Calgary Herald June 14, 2013
If it was your last night on Earth, would it be well-spent watching The Dandelion Project, a docu-drama that explores the issue of assisted suicide?
Maybe not if you’re a song and dance fan, or your last night coincides with the sizzling Blackhawks and Bruins series.
But for folks prepared to have a conversation about the way in which we choose to die, The Dandelion Project offers a great entry point into an emotionally loaded, complex, legalistic issue.
The catch for those who want to go out with a clear sense of what’s right and what’s wrong is that this is a messy conversation — much like the show itself, in which playwright Col Cseke weaves verbatim interviews with a dozen different people in a moving effort at exploring various Canadians’ efforts at controlling their right to die.
While how we — or our loved ones — choose to die is a gloomy conversation to have at the best of times, it’s also, as they say in playwriting circles, an issue where there is definitely something at stake — not only for the dying, but for those left behind, as well.
In Cseke’s docu-drama, deftly directed by Jamie Dunsdon, we get Monice Peter, in a virtuoso performance, playing every one of those characters — everyone from Cseke himself, to B.C. resident Gloria Taylor, who sued the government for the right to kill herself, to an 80-something Alberta physician who provides some surprising backstory on the issue.
There is Michael, who accompanies a man to Switzerland, to help him die at Dignitas, an assisted suicide spa of sorts.
There are daughters and sons of older people and the older people themselves, who articulate their thought process about what constitutes a quality life.
There is also, particularly early on, a lot of legalese and dry judicial backstory that is pretty dull going.
However, Peter, a force onstage, manages to deliver the legal documents as painlessly as possible, and even, with a hand from Dunsdon’s innovative staging and some projected images, finds a few metaphors to help elevate the experience out of the courtroom and into our hearts.
What’s particularly painful about all that legal architecture is that it’s ultimately not the core of the conflict at the heart of The Dandelion Project.
When one daughter-in-law relates the story of how her husband spends one final minute saying goodbye to his mom for the last time, she admits that she wanted to come back later, to be with mom after she’d taken her pills that would kill her.
She understands that they can’t legally do that, but adds, “I would have been willing to put up with the legal issues to be there with her.”
It’s a sentiment that makes perfect emotional sense, and in a way, illustrates the gap between the law and some deeper form of justice.
By the final few character sketches, as Peter sweeps us away to Switzerland, where, as Michael, she describes the quite distinct the experience of holding a man who has died in your arms, The Dandelion Project becomes as moving and beautiful as it was bureaucratic and over-legalistic at the top of the show.
There’s an epilogue, too, that feels wrong to me — I wanted it to end in that hotel room in Switzerland — but that’s more of a quibble than a criticism.
Peter, well-directed by Dunsdon, has found a way to bring Col Cseke’s thoughtful solo show about death to quite vivid life.
Uncompromising honesty and shatteringly real performances make Verb Theatre's production of Col Cseke's Jim Forgetting a devastating experience.
In Jim Forgetting, Cseke gives us a 38-year-old man who discovers he has early-onset Alzheimer's.
Jim (Haysam Kadri) goes from thinking he is in the prime of his life to realizing he is being condemned to a life void of memory and reasoning.
The impact of that discovery is made horribly clear when Jim asks his wife Donna (Shawna Burnett) if he is dying or even already dead.
She tells him not to be morbid, that he is alive and has decades more to live.
Her remark is meant to cheer him up but its devastating implications do not escape Jim or the audience.
Initially, the tragedy is Jim's as he tries to cope with the disease but eventually it becomes Donna's, as she must decide whether to put Jim in a care facility because the shell of the man in their home is no longer her husband.
There are several scenes in Jim Forgetting that claw at your heart as Jim and Donna fight.
He is driving her to distraction but doesn't know why or how and she refuses to play the dutiful, long-suffering wife.
You feel for both of them because Kadri and Burnett unleash such fury.
What is so impressive about Kadri and Burnett is that they never allow the script to become maudlin.
To Cseke's immense credit, there are moments of gentle humour in Jim Forgetting to balance the mounting pathos.
Because in its current form Jim Forgetting is so episodic and there are long pauses between scenes, Cseke lets the audience off the hook emotionally.
The set and props by Cseke and Jamie Dunsdon are a marvel, letting us glimpse at how confusing life must be for someone with Alzheimer's.
Do not let the subject matter of Jim Forgetting keep you away.
This play is as powerful and memorable as it is unsettling and insightful.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia and is often diagnosed in people over 65 years of age, but early onset Alzheimer’s can occur. The disease is predicted to affect 1 in 85 people globally by 2050. This illness is the subject of Verb Theatre’s play this season, Jim Forgetting.
The play opens to a couple, playing crib. We immediately know that Jim (Haysam Kadri) isn’t completely okay. His wife, Donna, (Shawna Burnett) informs the audience that Jim “forgets everything, but not how to play cards.” From here, we are launched into the ins and outs of their relationship and the impacts of Jim being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
Jim learns that he suffers from the disease in a poignant scene towards the middle of the play, and it is revealed to the audience that both he and Donna are in their thirties. We follow Jim and Donna through the pain, sadness and logic of being hit with this particular illness, at such a young age.
Needless to say, Jim Forgetting is not a comedic play, though it does have its funny moments. The twelve scenes unfold and we see Jim at his very worst in the illness and at his very best. The marking of time is a calendar in the corner, displaying the month and the year. And this is what makesJim Forgetting very compelling. The despair of the disease is lessened when the scenes skip around, allowing the audience to experience the narrative like puzzle pieces. As Jim’s memory deteriorates, Donna uses tools to cope with losing her husband while still having him be right there. We watch her deny that she will lie to him or make things up because he won’t remember anything anyway at the beginning of the play, then we see her struggle to reach into the depths of his memory to pull back the man she knows and loves. Fact and fiction blur and the audience feels like they exist in the recesses of Jim’s memory.
One scene in particular stands out, when Donna lies to her friend, telling her that Jim made her dinner and bought a cake for her fortieth birthday when Jim is much too ill to be capable of that. Her attempt to spark his memory and bring him back to life, like turning a key in an ignition is touchingly tragic.
Adding layers to the story is the sound design, weaving in and out of the play, giving background and emotionality by repetition. The audience gets to tap into the feelings of both the people suffering from the disease and the people supporting them. This makes the story multidimensional.
The set is adorned in cloth coverings, with mugs lining the shelves. It is chaotic and messy.
Motel Theatre is a small space and director Jamie Dunsdon decided to have the stage take place in the middle with the audience on either side. This creates an almost uncomfortably intimate space, being in the midst of the effects of Alzheimer’s.
Jim Forgetting features some outstanding performances. Burnett, as Donna, is emotive and wild, playing her role with such accuracy that it’s hard to keep your eyes off her. Kadri is phenomenal as Jim, flicking between a full character to a carcass of a man with grace.
At some point Donna says “it’s tempting to see what the disease takes away, instead of what you can prevent it from taking.”
Jim Forgetting is a close examination of the intricacies and shadows that haunt the people affected by Alzheimer’s disease, and is quietly heartbreaking.
Jim Forgetting runs at the EPCOR CENTRE’S Motel until March 31st. Tickets are available online or at the door. More information is available atwww.verbtheatre.com
Sharon Pollock shrinks a big room with her performance
Stephen Hunt, Calgary Herald
Published: Thursday, March 10, 2011
Marg Szkaluba might be a hard woman, but in concert she sure knows how to work the room.
Played by Governor-General Award winning playwright (and actress) Sharon Pollock, Marg, when we first meet her, is a straight forward, raw-boned rural Alberta gal with a habit for acting first and reflecting upon it later. This habit for non-reflection causes Marg, as a teenager, to end up pregnant by a teenage boy named Pissy.
That's not an encouraging sign, but being uneducated, and (selfconfessed) none too bright, Marg sets out to raise a family somewhere in the rural Alberta countryside, with Pissy as her husband.
While she loves Pissy, Marg also begins to question her marriage. The only problem is that for the first two decades of her wobbly marriage, Marg has no one to ask that question to, causing her to stay in a bad situation growing worse by the day.
It's a hard life, with not enough money and a pious, know-it-all husband who resolves conflicts by giving her a cuff or two, all of which sounds pretty bad, except that Marg has a stoic tendency to shake off Pissy's headshots the way old time hockey players used to.
However, a chance encounter in a bakery one day puts Marg in touch with someone who introduces her to a way out of her unhappy life: singing.
At first it's just singing in the woods, where Marg and some other women warble away their life stories to the trees and the stars in the sky -Iron John in drag.
And while she's no Pavarotti, Marg experiences a kind of epiphany when she sings that gives her the courage to set in motion a series of events designed to give her life back.
As played by Pollock, we learn of Marg's journey, from raw-boned young country girl, to abused mom, to what she is now -a hellacious, flannelshirt-wearing, blue-jean and booted 74-year-old performance artist telling the long-ago tale of her emancipation from an abusive marriage.
It's revealed through Marg's unvarnished, funnysad storytelling, and songs (she's accompanied by Kathy Zaborsky and Brent Podesky) with titles such as Bad Breath and Uncut Toenails, Was it Love? and Get on Your Horse and Ride, featuring Pollock warbling away in a style that might best be described as vintage country punk.
It all unfolds onstage at the Ironwood, a singersongwriter friendly saloon that comes complete with waitresses taking drink orders and clattering dishes and all the usual peripheral sounds you hear all the time in a saloon -not so much when you're a Canadian playwriting legend.
And of course, it would have been daunting enough to have to sing -something Pollock doesn't do -but there is also the small issue of having to learn all those lines! (The show is in two acts, and runs around two hours.)
At the show I saw, last Friday night, Pollock started out a little tentatively, understandable given the fact that her percussion section was the busboy in the kitchen clanging away at the dishes.
And while the Ironwood is a nice cosy intimate space for your garden-variety alt-country five-man band, it seemed kind of spacious for a country punk performance piece.
However, Pollock's tentative first steps soon gave way to a powerhouse performance.
As the evening wore on, and the crowd settled into the bumpy journey of Marg Szkaluba, Pollock managed to do what all the finest performers do: she shrunk the room by connecting so strongly to the material that soon we were all leaning forward in our seats, waiting to hear how Marg reacted the next time she got cuffed by Pissy.
The combination of Pollock's funny, earthy performance, Ron Chambers' compelling, believable script and Jamie Dunsdon's steady directorial hand makes Marg Szkaluba a bar story worth a pint or two of your time.
SHUNT@CALGARYHERALD.COM
__________________________
CALGARY SUN
There is something inherently dangerous in casting someone as recognizable as Sharon Pollock in a one-woman show.
To make it work, Pollock must convince us she is the abused wife of a simpleton farmer in Ron Chambers' Marg Szkaluba (Pissy's Wife) turned country singer.
So controlled and carefully delineated is Pollock's performance that she truly does become this remarkable woman who languished far too long under the belief she was unintelligent, unattractive and undeserving.
There are some difficult passages in Chambers' insightful play and Pollock refuses to soften them, so you find yourself wincing when Pissy recalls being beaten, humiliated and manipulated.
Pollock is joined on the stage at the Ironwood Stage and Grill in Inglewood by musicians Katharine Zaborsky and Brent Podesky.
With Pissy's Wife, Verb Theatre and director Jamie Dunsdon have given us a little gem well worth searching out.
Rumplestiltskin Perfect Blend of Mystery, Intimacy
by Brian Tyson
In New West Theatre's Rumplestiltskin, which opened Wednesday at the Sterndale Bennett, the Brothers Hanson and Mason have crafted their own ver sion of the famous folk tale about falsehoods and riddles, and produced a play which is anything but Grimm: rather it is a wonderful 90 minutes of entertainment for the entire family, but particularly those from about five years and up.
Crisply directed by Jamie Dunsdon, Rumplestiltskin is, to my way of thinking, the best children's play New West has yet done.
The simple set of cobblers shop and bale of straw, castle wall and spinning wheel captures the spirit of the story, and provides a believable background and a big enough stage for the actors, while the youngest members of the audience, sitting around the circle are close enough to touch the magic.
On occasions, the magic touches them, and some of their names are taken back inside the circle to help solve the riddle of Rumplestiltskin. This is how theatre should work: a mixture of intimacy and mystery: the thrashing floor touching the altar of the god.
