Press

SPENT

photo by Elisa Gilmour

At the Undercurrents festival in Ottawa 2011

“Spent made the whole festival worthwhile. This creation, which is in many ways a collective effort, brings together a team of theatre people whose work is a rare phenomenon in English speaking Canada where a theatre of text is the normal fare. Spent on the other hand has realized a break through in this verbal tradition by creating a performance based on the heightened presence of the body, as well as the creation of visual illusions and extremely intelligent textual fragments taken from contemporary writings of the church, from lacanian psychoanalysis and from journalistic analysis of current political events. It also integrates a multitude of linguistic forms, sounds, specific gestures and facial expressions that correspond to the many people who inhabit this country. And it all appears as the result of a heightened sense of theatricality which transforms the most banal occurrence into a highly stylized and exciting event that whets ones appetite for more.

Working closely with a very tighly orchestrated sound scape, both performers move in the most perfect harmony, as their choreography , their gestures, their facial expressions and their speaking styles, set off a theatrical dance that makes time whizz by at an unbelievable rate. I barely saw the hour go by.

Spent in fact creates a magnificent Urban Canadian myth. It tells the story of the Financial crash that hit the world several years ago, how it was reported in the Media and how the near suicide of two traders, produced the ‘Miracle on Bay Street’, a particular Toronto phenomenon that inspired a whole series of events, around the attempted suicide of our two Holy heroes. The sequences produce a breathtaking series of isolated episodes that create the illusion of teetering on the brink of suicide, of falling from the heights of the Bay street Towers. The two men are somehow swept away on a magical ride into the clouds, where they live a heavenly voyage and a hellish nightmare before returning to earth to resolve the financial crisis in Canada.

Using the techniques of silent film, (Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin and many others) where humour, slapstick and pathos come together in the most imaginative way, the two performers then draw on the most amazing rhythm –induced forms of mime, the physical poetry of Marceau Marceau, even Meyerhold’s image of the bio mechanical actor comes to life within this repertoire of all the forms of physical theatre that exist in the Western tradition, along with images inspired by the Lanterna Magica, and from other visual and corporeal based sources this collective of artists has seamlessly integrated them all in their own corporeal poetry.

Note for example the discussion where the two actors recreate a hot debate among a Lacanian psychoanalyst, a Hindu professor, an Anglican minister and an Italian Catholic priest, all talking at once and all reproducing the sounds and the gestures of each of these ‘types who see the world according to their own beliefs and their own cultural heritage. Leaping from such depths of discussion to sizzling broadcasts on BBC television and the final moment when the two holy survivors of the suicide attempt curl up together in their getaway train with their ties flapping in the wind as they eat hot soup out of a can. Such sequences are worthy of the most brilliant moments of classic silent film and will certainly have an impact on the future evolution of theatre in English Canada. I kid you not. What this company has achieved is very important.

Why Not theatre, TheatreRun and Theatre Smith –Gilmour must return to Ottawa sometime soon. They were a breath of fresh air in the theatrical landscape of this city and everyone should have a chance to see them. The problem is that after Spent, everything else might just seem a little bit boring…

If you can only see ONE show at the Undercurrents Festival, Spent must be your choice.”

- Alvina Ruprecht, Capital Critics Circle Ottawa February 3, 2011

Ottawa, February 3, 2011.

” * * * (3/4 stars)

With people losing homes, savings and livelihoods, it’s hard to imagine that there’s a heck of a lot of mirth to be squeezed out of the latest, worldwide financial upheaval.

But clowning knows few boundaries, which explains why younger talents Adam Paolozza and Ravi Jain have joined forces with directors Michele Smith and Dean Gilmour (of Theatre Smith-Gilmour) to try to track down any humour that may be found amid all the darkness.

The result is Spent, 60 minutes of clowning, satire and absurdism, which opened last night at Factory Studio Theatre.

Contained within the framework of a BBC World News report, a lot of Spent is splendidly satirical as Paolozza and Ravi target the greed that underlies the current crisis.

For example, there’s a lovely section in which a twitching Richard Fuld, former head of Lehman Brothers, is grilled about his multi-million-dollar stock options, in stark contrast to his shareholders who have lost everything.

But then the show decides to focus on two Toronto traders, poised to jump off a Bay St. building. Much to everyone’s surprise (including their own), they survive and it is immediately dubbed “the miracle on Bay St.” But on their way down, the traders undergo a series of nightmarish, fantastical adventures, including a memorable visit to hell complete with some gruesome tortures and a delightful guest appearance by the Devil himself.

Also lots of fun is Rapid Fire, a talking heads program on which various pundits give their opinions about the survival of the Bay St. duo. Paolozza and Jain seize the opportunity to switch between the four guests and two hosts with breathtaking speed and precision.

Not all of the evening is this sharply honed, however, and the piece runs out of steam before the end. But along the way, they have made us laugh – and made us think.

” This is a great show : inventive, physical, funny, virtuoso and somewhat sly. It’s unabashed physical theatre. Ravi and Adam are the real thing. “

- Robert Crew, Toronto Star October 2009

“Spent is first class theatre
from powerhouse creators.”
– Paula Citron, Classical 96.3fm

“A wonderful combination of incisive satire
and sharp physical comedy…” NNNN!
– Jon Kaplan, NOW Magazine

“…magnificently crafted…ingeniously well performed…October’s hottest commodity.”

- Denise Hinds, Torontostage.com

“Inventive, physical, funny, virtuosic and sly”

- Leah Cherniak, former AD of Theatre Colombus

” I was delighted by SPENT. A great way to spend 40 minutes in a black box and come out feeling richer, not spent. Witty, subversive, cocasse. “

- Matthew Jocelyn, Artistic Director for The Canadian Stage Company

” You do not want to miss this show. “

- Franco Boni, Artistic Director for the Theatre Centre

 

Artaud : un portrait en décomposition

photo by Marc Lemyre

“Intimate…beautiful…the kind of work we want to see more of in Toronto.”

- Sophie Perceval, TFO – Radio Canada

“Beautiful…moving, human…”

- Marjorie Murhpy, Radio Canada

“Stylish and cinematic”

- Patricia Marceau, actor/director

The Raven

“The Raven is story telling at its finest. Why Not Theatre and TheatreRUN have interpreted Edgar Allen Poe’s classic tale with masterful elegance. Their style is inventive, physical and compellingly fun – and not for one second do they lose that specific edge of Gothic horror. Keep watching out for these exceptional theatre artists!”
- Martha Ross, former co-artistic director and founder of Theatre Colombus

…for HORROR VACUI

” * * * * “ – The Scotsman, Edinburgh

” * * * * ” – The Metro, Edinburgh

” Perfect theatrical pixie dust for a rainy afternoon. ” – The Scotsman, Edinburgh

” Charms with a blithe, cartoonish spirit. ” Charleston Post and Courrier, Charleston SC

” TheatreRUN breathes new life into an old form… ” – NYTheatre.com, New York

…for RUSSIAN DOLL

The Stranger – Seattle November 18, 2004 issue
Artsy, but Not Alienating
by Brendan Kiley

Damn those cute bastards of TheatreRUN all to hell. Damn them up and down, left and right: damn those Swiss/Canadian/English/American artists for having all the fun. This one-and- a-half-year-old traveling company has come to ConWorks with Russian Doll. It’s a fun bit of physical theater–imaginative and artsy, but not alienatingly so. They met at the très international Lecoq School in Paris, where they studied clownery, mimicry, and the bare bones of comedy and tragedy–what makes a scene funny or touching whether you’re from Rwanda or Japan.

And that’s the problem–these good-looking youngsters do their magical thing from Paris to New York, casting eccentric flowers on the rain-stained sidewalks. They spell theater with an “-re.” I imagine they sweat rosewater during rehearsals and retire to a tastefully bohemian apartment, where they get blissfully stoned and host sweet, sweet commedias dell’orgy. (Put that one in your press release, kids!)

How nice, in these dark days of conservative conquest, to be an itinerant artist and not a mere terrestrial being, hunching over a keyboard in dorky socks, pawing through the notes I take when interviewing my betters. Because they needed the PR, they agreed to pretend, for 45 minutes, that I was a person worth talking to.

We began with a rousing round of Celebrity Rorschach, a game I invented on the spot, in which the company would hear me say five words and then blurt out the first word that came to their minds:

“Boot,” I said. “Camp,” one replied.

“Leaf.” “Rolling.”

“Rubber.” “Glove.”

“Bulb.” “-ous.”

“Frankie.” “Johnny.”

My one novel idea exhausted, I asked them about Russian Doll. It’s a series of stories, told with minimal props and maximal beauty, “but not abstract or dancey.” Each of the three tales happens in a successively bigger space on the stage. The first features a young, vaguely Russian woman who immigrates to America and sets up a doll factory. The ensemble elaborates the three-act tale in a 172-inch by 10-foot rectangle, with nothing more than their bodies, some rope, and shiny tools. The next story concerns office workers trapped in a dull cycle of the mundane. The boss somehow falls out of the loop and begins pulling coworkers from their comfortable repetition. The third story is about a guy running through his own memory, and occupies the biggest area of the stage–the inner life, performed in the biggest space. See? These guys get it.

TheatreRUN’s first show (Horror Vacui) had its premiere in a Paris geriatric ward, and the audience wandered around, shouted, and pissed themselves during the show. An ancient lady in the crowd declared: “If I don’t die soon, I’d like to see what that company does next.”

This is your chance to see what that morbid old Frenchwoman is missing.

Nightstand – The Stranger – Seattle From the Dec 2 – Dec 8, 2004 issue
Fools, Russian
by Christopher Frizzelle

The world premiere of TheatreRUN’s Russian Doll ended its run at Consolidated Works to a half-full house two Sundays ago. A half-full house on the closing night of a show as good as Russian Doll is sad, but it’s not as sad as, say, having to cancel a performance because literally no one showed up (which also happened during the run), or getting panned in another weekly newspaper by a reviewer who admitted to not understanding the show (“I’m at a loss”) and then held up his own failure to understand it as the only real evidence that the show didn’t work. (The Seattle Times, on the other hand, raved about it, and Brendan Kiley wrote a brief column in this paper profiling the charismatic ensemble: two actors, four actresses.) When word finally began to get out that Russian Doll was actually sturdy, modern, comic, smarter than its own premise, and worthy of people’s attention–surely it was better than Take Me Out, that cheesy play at Seattle Rep about the gay baseball player, which most reviewers bent over forwards to describe as daring, full of meaning, etc. –by that point, Russian Doll had closed. One member of the cast was packing her bags for London, another for Switzerland. (The play was created collaboratively at ConWorks, but the players live all over the world.) And Russian Doll is the kind of show that can’t go on without its actors, and these actors in particular: Their intuition, timing, chemistry, and control is not the kind of thing that’s easily replicated.

My contribution to the Russian Doll word-of-mouth mill consisted of calling two-dozen people the afternoon before closing night, many of whom were writers. (More than anything else, the show, which again and again pulled in unforeseen directions, exemplified narrative possibility, which I realize isn’t a thrilling plane of thought for everyone, but the first of the three performances I saw made me want to go home and turn out a novel.) One problem Russian Doll’s creators are going to have as they take the show elsewhere is describing Russian Doll in a way that makes it sound remotely entertaining. The description of the show that ran in The Stranger’s calendar–”spectacular physical theater”–sucks. The show was spectacular, and its physicality was endlessly compelling, but it wasn’t a show about pantomime. It was about people. Pantomime is a tradesman’s trick; it’s imitative and dull. What the few who saw Russian Doll saw was life–sharply presented, but messy, seemingly uncalibrated, surprising. The Russian doll of the title, made entirely of metal, got no here-is-a-symbol treatment. Nor did the theme of time, although time’s at the center of it all: its thrilling forward rush, its awful imperviousness, its neutrality, its speed, its dispensations, its unfathomable capacity. There were physical innovations in Take Me Out, too, but who cared? The innovations in Russian Doll, which also involved physical elements, were riskier. Russian Doll was modern in the literary sense. It was about being trapped in the act of being.

Seattle Times
“Russian Doll” is weirdly lovely experimental theater

By Leah B. Green

The title of TheatreRUN’s world-premiere physical theater work, “Russian Doll,” initially evokes kitsch — those doll-within-a-doll-within-a-doll contraptions that allow one to fit a whole family of old-country Russians into a single shelf space.

Thankfully, the entirety of the weirdly lovely “Russian Doll,” created for Consolidated Works’ “Instinct” series, includes none of those gimmicky tourist artifacts. “Russian Doll” may, however, owe them a spiritual debt — as they approach their art with a similar attention to the clever use of space, layered undertones and a repetition of old themes.

The collaboration of six performers (an international crew that includes one former Seattleite — James Garver) with San Francisco playwright Andy Miara, “Doll” relies on the bedrock values of physical theater work: ensemble casting, triple-duty props, minimalist imagery, compelling narrative, a healthy sense of play and a “why not?” attitude. The first image on stage is that of a stark white box laid on the floor. At first, it seems the cast intends to act the entirety of the play inside this cramped box — and one wonders how they ever made it through rehearsals.

In this story, Natasha, escaping an unwanted marriage, runs off with her blacksmith lover. Losing him during their escape, Natasha finds solace — and profit — in the manufacture of iron-cast dolls that carry subtle emotional connotations in their uncuddly faces.

When the box breaks open — as a means to denote a major shift in scenery — the results are a pair of David Lynch-ish vignettes of absolutely no consequence to the original story.

The first (and better) of these is an office scene in which the drone inhabitants get swept out of their routine by a mysterious force, revealing frightening truths about their tenuous existence.

The second follows the bitter demise of a relationship — a gimmicky bit in which the woman is played in tag-team by every woman in the cast. Both of these departures jar us out of the primary story just long enough to disorient. They make us question things like the fluidity of identity and our lack of real control in the world.

“Russian Doll” may be the perfect introduction to experimental theater for the uninitiated or those scarred by former encounters with nonsensical performance art.

It is challenging, but not impossible to grasp. And thanks to a tightly wound and thoughtful performance by the expert ensemble, it is blissfully entertaining as well.