The 13th annual Wildside Festival, at the Centaur Theatre through Sunday, January 17th, definitely lives up to its name. The festival brings together six cutting-edge plays – and it’s a wild and exhilarating ride all the way.
Johanna Nutter is always worth seeing and her performance in My Pregnant Brother, the story about her sister who first became a man and then gave birth to a girl, is astonishing. In a simple narrative, this performer gives the audience a beautiful story related with magic nuances and brilliant simplicity. It is theatre at its most elemental and it makes facing the cold very worth while.
Dance Animal is the explosive and delightful creation choreographed by Robin Henderson and featuring 10 talented and terrifically funny performers. The choreography and the monologues interacted perfectly to send up the musical style and put reality performance television to shame. It was so fresh and original and one can only hope that there will be more shows in this genre. All the performances were wonderful, but I remember best the modern dancer who did not speak but danced her story and had another performer “translate” her modern dance moves.
Someone Between, written and performed by Chantria Tram, is a beautifully staged narrative about the life of a first generation Cambodian woman in Canada. It is a truly interesting work in progress. As someone who was born in a refugee camp, I was particularly delighted by the moments when the young Chantria is trying to interpret her parents’ reality to a “Canadian” girlfriend. The play worked best when it give the actor a chance to act, and her performance as the mother was terrific. There was a little too much information, and too little playing, but it remains a fascinating window into the dislocation and trauma of trying to bridge two very disparate cultures.
Ties is a haunting and very interesting performance piece by the Odelah Collective. Performed by Christine Aubin Khalifah and Greg Gale, and directed by Arianna Bardesono, it addresses grief, love and mourning for a parent. The first third of the piece is physical theatre with repetition, mime and little dialogue. The opening which is performed on the floor could not actually be seen because of the sightlines, and then suddenly it comes to life. It feels like a first act of a work in progress, interesting, but not yet realized. It is certainly worth seeing for its originality and the very fine performances.
Penumbra by Katherine Dempsey is shocking. No, not the sexuality of the piece or the brilliant staging or fabulous performances, but the truth just sets one back on one’s heels. Catherine Berubé is a brilliant performer. Her rendition of the 17-year-old suburban girl who posts an ad on the internet and reaps a world of painful and inadequate sexual and emotional interactions is mesmerizing. Paul Van Dyke is the wunderkind of the English theatre scene and his direction was subtle and brilliant. Michelle Boback performed well the wife who becomes an enabler and Howard Rosenstein gave a fabulous performance of the difficult prissy professor. Christopher Moore was entirely believable as the abandoned boyfriend. Penumbra is the end of romance and its hard edged cynicism is searing.
Dust, by Jason Maghanoy, is well written in a minimalist style that is deceptively simple. Jonathan (Brandon Coffey) and Jenny (Jesssica Moss) perform brilliantly the barely literate and simple minded duo who fall into the hell of the prison routines in Iraq. Their courtship and work is recorded by Jenny on digital camera. As Jonathan tries to pull away from the moral morass of what they are doing and what it causes them to become, his paramour is becoming addicted to sadism. The play was short and very well done, and it addressed the unthinkable which is as useful as it is unpleasant, and this work gives new meaning to Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty.
The festival is on until Sunday January 17 at the Centaur Theatre. Box office: 514 288 3161.
