Drama: Pilot Episode

February 2 to March 3, 2012

Martha Cohen Theatre

http://www.atplive.com/playRites/Drama/index.html

I like dramatic theatre. I am fond of comedy on the stage. In fact, I am also a fan of theatrical film noir motifs, avant garde plays, anti-narrative turns, post-modern scripts and song and dance punctuated shows. But I don’t necessarily want them all presented together in one play. Especially when the underlying story the genres are trying to tell isn’t overly compelling in the first place. Welcome to Drama: Pilot Episode, a play that hopefully will not be picked up for syndication.

Written by Karen Hines, the play centers on Dr. Penelope Douglas, a Forensic Psychiatrist who has moved west to Calgary after some “incident” in Toronto forced her to begin anew.  Upon checking into her hotel, she is told that the very important Banff Film Festival is taking place in town and that there are no car and drivers to be found as a result. Cabs apparently don’t exist anymore in Calgary we are told by the hotel receptionist.  OK, so we are watching an altered reality/noir-ish type of play it seems. Fine, I’m ok with that.

The action then moves to a local psychiatrist’s office where Penelope seeks out advice on treating live patients in her new practice. The scene is replete with knee-slapping yuk-yuk jokes and a buffoonish male psychiatrist that would be easily at home on any run of the mill primetime TV must-see program.  OK, so we’re in for a “crazy comedy” night in the theatre. Sure, I’m there.

Several short vignette scenes follow that once again change the momentum and place of the play. An extremely well written and witty exchange with Penelope’s pregnant oil-wife friend Columbia moves the play to the black-comedy part of town. An equally intriguing scene in which Penelope learns about her recently purchased condo’s roots in Native lore from her slick sales brochure-speaking real estate agent, hauls the play into graphic novel territory. Frankly at this point I’m a little woozy from all the switches. And it did not help that peppered amongst all these scenes was, in no particular order, an anti-narrative vignette in which a dead bird drops out of the sky, a ghost-like girl wandering around at the back of the stage, the ongoing lip-bleed from an animal claw in Penelope’s lipstick, cast members exiting the stage into the aisles projecting zombie-like throat noises and several un-funny silly comedic exchanges.

And we haven’t even got to the real plot arc yet. Unfortunately by the time we do watch Penelope’s first patient, a TV writer, hang himself in her bathroom and the resulting desire for his unpublished scripts by a television executive and an actress, I am so frustrated by all the unnecessary moments, dropped threads and genre changes that I am having trouble caring about what happens. By the time we’re lead to question if one of the dead writer’s scripts is actually being played out on stage or if Penelope is in fact a “Swamp Master”  – a band of rouge psychiatrists that go into the underworld to help patients, no I’m not making this up – I am wholly and utterly mentally checked up due to disinterest.

In a glass-half-full world, Drama: Pilot Episode does offer audiences some stellar performances. Lindsay Burns as the TV executive, Mabelle Carvajal as Columbia, and Alana Hawley as the actress all pull extraordinarily good performances out of a questionable play and benefit greatly from getting the best lines the script has to offer. Scott Reid’s minimal set design which hangs cow skulls and one full cow skeleton at the back of the stage and modern red leather benches on set is sleek without being too cool for school. And despite the unappetizing mash-up of just too many ideas with too little coherence, Hines does deliver some very affecting  writing that at turns is funny and though-provoking.  Too bad it’s all wasted in a tedious play that throws every genre at its audience hoping that something will stick.

RATING

For the guys and the girls and the occasional theater goer and the theatre junkie – I couldn’t think of a good reason to break out the explanations of why this won’t appeal. It’s pretty universal to my mind. SKIP IT 

Attempts on her Life

February 15 – 28

Theater Junction

http://www.theatrejunction.com/2011-2012-season/attempts-on-her-life/

Seeing and reviewing a play mid to late in the run is something I’m loathe to do. Primarily out of ego (I like to be the first opinion on the block) but not insignificantly because I like to give readers lots of time to digest the review and arrange to see the play if they are so inclined. However, my recent travel schedule has made this impossible for the next couple plays I am seeing. In the case of Theatre Junction’s production of Martin Crimp’s postmodernist play Attempts on Her Life, I am not only woefully late in the game, but fear that by the time my review is posted there will only be a few days left for the production. For those of you who like last-minute planning – no biggie. For others, my apologies. And to all I say, let’s dispense with the usual long drawn out review and cut to the chase this time.

Attempts on Her Life, subtitled “17 scenarios for the theatre” is experimental theatre personified. The non-linear plotless play whirls around an unknown and unseen character Anne who is discussed and debated second-hand in a series of anti-narrative scenes.  The multiple perspectives we get from these strange and sometimes funny vignettes do little to tell us who Anne actually is or was. She is described as a terrorist, a porn star, a suicide, a white supremacist, and a femme fatale consecutively, concurrently or perhaps not at all. And this is the point. In searching for the “real” Anne, the audience is asked to consider the notion that there is no “real” person anymore. We are all instead facsimile products of an increasingly violent, fragmented world where the self is crushed by rampant technology, consumerism and just too damn much communication.

Um….so yeah. Not a play for everyone. And even if you get off on this type of risk-taking production, it’s not a play that gets everything right. But with 17 vignettes all vying to out-cool, out-weird and out-perform each other I suppose that a bit of unevenness can be excused, especially when the high points are so compelling.

The scenes where Anne’s suicide is discussed by her mom and dad, a grotesquely sexy commercial vignette with Anne as a sports car and a dark episode with Anne as a teenage porn star are deeply affecting and have the audience’s full rapt attention. The more frenetic scenes, especially those accompanied full-throttle by live musicians, feel over directed and play-acted. In particular, one scene with Anne as a model/party girl relies too heavily on strobe lights and loud music to make its point and ends up feeling amateurish as a result. The other notable problems with the production are organically inherent in Crimp’s script leaving little room to make them better. Many scenes were so incomprehensibly metaphoric or symbolic to the point of disinterest that no matter how good the acting or direction, attention was lost. Fortunately for the audience, just when the scenes become too much or give too little to grab onto, another intense moment of storytelling from a uniformly strong cast comes along to pull you back in.

What doesn’t ever lose audience interest in Attempts on Her Life is the set design by Mark Lawes and for the most part his fluid direction that navigates his cast through the industrial-feeling set that is at the same time cold yet alive. All the bells and whistles are used here, there are 5 TV sets showing images of either the action on stage or recorded video clips, a big screen at the back of the stage where larger images are shown, several smoke machines, a sound system, photo-shoot lighting set-ups, wires and cords abounding and minimal props that look like something one would find in an apocalyptic flophouse. But in this case the bells have substance and the result is a stage that pulses with energy.

After the final scene as the cast assembled to take their bows there was a long awkward moment of lack of clapping from the audience. Did we not realize the play was over? Were we too overwhelmed to react? Did the experiment fail?  Whatever the reason, there was no doubt that some positive or negative uncertainty was going on. Regardless, the shame of it is that like it or not, Attempts on Her Life was a wild ride that merited much louder and longer clapping than we offered. So to the cast, the director and everyone involved I say a belated yet hearty Bravo!

RATING

For the guys and the girls – Anne’s gender is irrelevant – this is a story about identity in a modern world and to my mind this is something we can all relate to. Ignore the parts that don’t work and enjoy the ride. SEE IT

For the occasional theatre goer – Stop. Do not pass go. Do not accept $200. Stay home and watch CSI or something. SKIP IT

For the theatre junkie – You’ll be frustrated by how good it could have been compared to how often it fails. But it’s bold and risky and thought-provoking and it’s the kind of theatre that doesn’t get put on the stage in Calgary very often. SEE IT

Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays

February 1 to March 4, 2012

Various Venues – check website for more information

http://www.atplive.com/playRites/playRites.html#productions

For a theatre critic in Calgary, it’s never really a good time to go away as there is always something new and potentially interesting on the stages in the city. And while I’m immensely grateful for this, it does become frustrating when you realize just what you are missing when you do book a vacation.

Unfortunately this month, vacation for me means missing all the openings for the Enbridge playRites Festival. Believe me…I’ve already done the phooey-phooey dance and it didn’t help much. So…..I’m relying on my lovely and loyal applause-meter.com readers to  provide some reviews for me.

I will be back in town February 18, with just a week or so left to catch the shows. So dear readers, what should I see? What do you recommend and what didn’t light your spark? I will be posting last-minute  reviews on the shows I do manage to see, but would be immensely grateful if you could help steer me in the direction of those most worth catching and reviewing…for whatever reason!

The shows this year are:

Thinking of Yu

By Carole Fréchette, Translated by John Murrell

February 1 – March 4, 2012

DRAMA: Pilot Episode

By Karen Hines

February 2 – March 3, 2012

Ash Rizin

By Michael P. Northey and Kyprios

In association with Green Thumb Theatre

February 3 – March 3, 2012

Good Fences

By the Downstage Creation Ensemble

In association with Downstage

February 14 – March 4, 2012

Personally, upon first glance, my tastes will tip me towards Thinking of Yu and Good Fences. But maybe it’s the other two that are the standouts. Drop me a line, let me know and look for my reviews when I get back.

Until then, I encourage you to find yourself in a dark theatre and leave you with the words of Oscar Wilde.  “I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”

Enron

January 31 – February 19, 2012

Max Bell Theatre

http://theatrecalgary.com/plays/enron/more_info/

Listen for my live review of Enron on CBC’s Eyeopener on Monday, February 6 at 7:40 am

http://www.cbc.ca/eyeopener/columnists/theatre/

Any theatre critic who tells you that they don’t read other reviewers’ takes on a production is lying. We all do it. This is especially true for a play like Lucy Prebble’s Enron which was such a hit in England (with two successful runs) and yet such a flop on Broadway (the play closed after only fifteen performances). The Guardian’s Michael Bilington called Enron, “a fantastic theatrical event…. an exhilarating mix of political satire, modern morality and multimedia spectacle.” While Ben Brantley of the New York Times declared the play, “A flashy but labored economics lesson…. factitious, all show (or show and tell) and little substance.” Over-enthusiasm on the part of the Brits or a case of US sour grapes at the Wall Street bashing from across the pond? Or maybe just a case of the Russell Brand phenomenon – things that are huge in Britain that cause Americans to gag.  Regardless, I’m sure the critics had their reasons and their respective audiences reacted similarly. So when I learned that Enron was making its Canadian premiere here in Calgary, I was very intrigued to see what my maple leaf sensibilities thought of it.

At the risk of subverting the Canadian global peacemaker role and employing it as a tool of theatre critique, I’d say that Enron fairly falls somewhere between the two opposing reviews. It was not, as the Brits claimed, an altogether exhilarating experience. But nor was it a laboured and contrived puff piece as it was called in New York.

The play is an entertaining show that benefits greatly from a decent cast, Antoni Cimolino’s smart direction, creative set design, interesting use of multi-media elements, the ability to dramatize complicated financial dealings into lay-person friendly narrative and at times, the inspired use of puppets. Enron is also a show that suffers from the weight of an over-loaded plot that tries to cram too many elements into the second half, a script that occasionally falls short, a preachy but empty final monologue and at times, the uninspired use of puppets.

The play opens in 1992 with the Houston-based Enron hiring of Jeffrey  Skilling on the back of his mark to market scheme – an accounting system where the company can realize the profits it’s going to make now as opposed to waiting for the money to actually come in. Starting off as a bit of a finance geek, Skilling quickly gets the taste for climbing the corporate ladder and eventually wins  the favour of Enron Chairman Ken Lay who promotes him to President over his equally ambitious colleague, Claudia Roe (an amalgam of several female executives who served at Enron). As a result of his accounting system, Skilling is able to show great profits for Enron and the markets react accordingly by pushing the stock price to never before seen highs. But Skilling has a problem. Those profits he promised would come in haven’t and unless he does something about it, the whole situation will explode. Enter Andy Fastow, a finance whiz who comes up with a plan for Enron to open shadow companies he calls Raptors (yes, he was a Jurassic Park fan) that will take on Enron’s debt until the real profits materialize so Enron’s books don’t have to show a loss. It works for a while and pretty soon with a combination of fancy accounting, favourable market developments and great analyst-love for the company, Enron becomes more successful than ever. But like all good morality tales, the cheating eventually catches up with the fraudsters. Enron’s smoke and mirror “success” is exposed and the world finds out that the company is worth nothing, leaving thousands of employees penniless and Wall Street with its tail between its legs. As anyone who watched the news in the early 2000’s knows, charges were laid, Fastow and Skilling were jailed and Lay died of a heart attack before sentencing.

Financial stories, while they may have intrigue and drama, are not the easiest thing to translate to a stage, and this is where Prebble excels. Metaphor is the name of the game when her characters attempt to explain the workings of markets and corporate dealings and they do so with easily digestible sound bites which resonate regardless of your financial aptitude. When talking about hedging, Fastow’s character likens it to owning airline stock but also buying stock in a car rental company should an airplane crash and people be suddenly afraid to fly. When explaining why Wall Street was so blindly enthusiastic about Enron, one analyst character says it’s like getting on a plane – you don’t know exactly how it works but you and everyone around you believes it is going to fly and if you stop the flight because you don’t know how the plane works you look crazy.  The double airplane imagery aside, these metaphors appear fairly unforced in the dialogue and go a long way to bringing the audiences’ understanding of events and ability to thereby enjoy the play up to speed.

And in the first act, there is much to enjoy. Breta Gerecke gives us a multi-level enclosed set with sliding doors that open to expose the action in the Enron offices or boardrooms while also acting as a screen for the numerous 90’s themed images projected on its surface. The set seems to pulsate with energy, sometimes literally in the case of Fastow’s basement office which glows nefariously red with financial misdeeds, and brings a unique and much-needed visual impact to this otherwise bookish story.

Puppet-like costuming also goes a long way to provide colour and tongue-in-cheek story development in the first act. Enron Board members as big-headed blind mice, the Raptor shadow companies as (you guessed it) full body Raptor suits, an Arthur Andersen accountant as a ventriloquist with dummy and investment bank Lehman Brothers as comical Siamese twins – these were all employed to their drama/comedy best and kept audiences guessing at what might be next.

The rest of the first act was filled out with some cute, but not too cute, blessedly short song and dance bits that served as punctuations to the narrative rather than full sentences and a cast that seemed to grasp that they were playing caricatures of their real life Enron roles rather than being asked to deliver deep meaningful character studies. Graham Abbey as Jeffrey Skilling, Barry Flatman as Kenneth Lay and Rylan Wilkie as Andy Fastow all do a fine job onstage even if not much is asked from them. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable first half to the evening that flowed effortlessly and with great energy thanks to Cimolino’s entertaining direction.

But like the Enron collapse in the second act, the play’s writing, direction, puppet-use and story-telling took a downward tumble that it could simply not recover from. One of the challenges in adapting a true story for the stage is what to leave in and what to dismiss. Instead of editing or amalgamating the events of Enron’s undoing for dramatic effect, Prebble tries to stuff them all into a bloated second act that provides us with too many scenes yet not enough information. We get the justice hearings and the courtroom scenes yet it isn’t until Skilling’s lawyer talks to him later on that we fully understand that Fastow ratted out Skilling in return for a lesser sentence. In other words,  three scenes that could have easily been done in one, to greater effect. Then there’s the awkwardly staged inclusion of Skilling’s drunken and paranoid exchange with a street-walker. Yes, we vaguely recall that Skilling had an arrest for public intoxication, but it did nothing to move the story forward and instead was one more unnecessary layer on an act that was already dragging badly.

Even more egregious was the over-use of the Raptor creatures in the second half. Far from simply being metaphors for the shadow companies, Cimolino has them at the forefront of every scene involving Fastow. They growl, they bite, they get sick, they need to be tasered to be kept under control. What was a clever metaphor in the first half became a gratingly literal interpretation of how the shadow companies were out of control. If one could be beaten over the head with a Raptor, the audience surely experienced it.

But perhaps the most disappointing moment of the second half was the final monologue delivered by Skilling before he enters his cell.  A huge stock chart is projected on the set and Skilling begins a long speech about how every innovation has occurred by being in an unrealistic bubble and that his actions at Enron were just another bubble that would have eventually born the same type of fruit. It is a hubris –filled monologue that I’m guessing is supposed to show Skilling’s lack of remorse and perhaps betray Prebble’s belief that Skilling was heartless right up to the end. But weak writing foils this effort and instead sends Skilling to his cell with the air taken out of both Abbey’s performance and a second act that was already floundering.

So in the end, Enron the play has much in common with Enron the company. Both employed creative and innovative elements to make it look extremely attractive, both were an entertaining ride for a while with many successful features, but ultimately both the Enron the play and Enron the company came undone and ended with a whimper. However, unlike the risk that Enron the company took, I heartily applaud the risk taken in the play. I would rather see a production that takes chances and stages something unique even if it fails on some levels than be made to sit through a safe bet. Enron may be somewhat lacking in the end, but when looked at from a big picture point of view, its hits outweigh the disappointments and the good can be focused on enough to enjoy the result. Or at least that’s my measured Canadian take on it.

RATING

For the guys – Don’t be afraid by the puppets and the dancing. This is a financial tale told fairly well with some great theatrical moments. SEE IT

For the girls – Whether you followed the story or not, you’ll get the gist and will be uniquely entertained by the first half. Focus on that as you shuffle in your seat during the conclusion. SEE IT

For the occasional theatre goer – You’ll either find the puppets helpful in the story-telling or totally preposterous. This is not breezy theatre going – you have to pay attention to get the financial narrative and keep up. MAYBE SEE IT

For the theatre junkie – Yes the characters and script are terribly ill-formed at times, but the narrative method is unique, the production is visually exciting and it’s a chance to see Cimolino direct before he most likely nabs the most important job in Canadian Theatre as Artistic Director of the Stratford Shakespeare Company. SEE IT