Thursday, November 13, 2014

Now For Something Completely Different!

The last time I went to a play was a couple of years ago at the behest (insistence) of my grandparents. It was a musical at Celebrations Dinner Theatre, called My Big Fat Winnipeg Wedding. For those of you not exactly in tune with pop culture, that's a blatant rip off, er, reference, to My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I do not like musicals. I did not care for My Big Fat Greek Wedding all that much either. So the two in combination were not good to me. On the other hand they served steak, so that was a plus. Last night I attended a play which, while decidedly lacking in steak, was also decidedly lacking in music, so that ought to have evened out.

WAIT A MINUTE, WHERE'S THE HOCKEY?

Pipe down, voices in my head, we'll come back to that next week. This week, plays.

I attended a play last night put on by Theatre Projects Manitoba. They performed Michael Healey's Proud, which was ostensibly a satire based on an alternate universe in which Stephen Harper's Conservative Party achieved not only a majority but a truly spectacular majority in which the NDP lost all the seats in Quebec. As much as I would have enjoyed that in real life, it was interesting to see Healey's take on things.

Of course this play turned out to be less a satire than a romantic comedy. Stop me if this sounds familiar: guy meets girl, guy is extremely busy and career driven where girl is far more relaxed and also overtly sexual, the two hate each other at first but grow to like, maybe even love each other and the busy career guy learns that, in the immortal words of Family Guy, casual sex can solve all of his problems. If that sounds familiar it's because it's the plot of every romantic comedy ever written. Including this one. So it loses some points for predictability and originality.

Where I thought it gained those points back was the thin veil of satire in which this rom-com was clad. The lambasting of Stephen Harper is surprisingly, bordering on frighteningly, accurate (and this is a right-winger saying this) and the actor playing him, Ross McMillan, did a stellar job. He has Harper's mannerisms, from his speech patterns to his method of standing, to his seeming social awkwardness (how much of that is a spectacle on Harper's part is up for debate) down to a science. He could convincingly masquerade as Harper himself fairly well. The female lead, played by Daria Puttaert, is named Jisbella, and once I got over how hilarious that was I noticed that she was just about the most overtly sexual character I had ever seen. Then I un-got over how funny her name was upon thinking that. Her name was about as subtle as her character which was about as subtle as a nuclear weapon. And you know what? It works! The portrayal of Harper is so blatantly, delightfully bland that this polar opposite Jisbella (I now suspect the author gave her this name on the condition of a lost bet) contrasts him nicely.

Whatever the faults with the writing (I could not escape the feeling that one of Matthew McConaughey or Ben Stiller was going to walk on stage to win the girls heart at any minute) there were none with the acting. Both the leads and the support characters, ably played by Kevin Gable and Eric Blais, play their roles to perfection, not one line is bobbled or delivered flatly, and even the bland character of Harper (who is so obviously satirical that naming him Hephen Starper would have been more subtle, but I didn't go there for subtle) comes off as deep and motivated. There are some cheap laughs to be had here, and one terrific monologue by McMillan in which he runs down all the things about which he does not care.

Compared to other plays... well it's been a while so, as I said earlier, no steak but no singing either. A solid draw.

Seriously though, it was performed with more feel than most other plays I've seen and I found myself enjoying it in parts. I wasn't spending the whole time poking holes in the plot, which was all too easy to do at some other plays I attended.

The inevitable question period at the end was as I expected: not a ton of new information. One interesting thing that arose from it was the McMillan's fascination with Harper. He even said that since Harper himself is an act when he addresses the media, Harper is playing a role; if Harper can act as his persona, there's no reason McMillan can't do the same, or such was his thinking. What disappointed me somewhat was that the writer of the play didn't attend, but the he couldn't possibly attend every talkback so I hardly begrudge him that. The most interesting part of this play was the underlying satire, and it would've been interesting to hear the writer's take on things, since it was from his mind that this satire arose. I would also wonder whether he intended to have the relationship between Harper and Jisbella (still can't write that with a straight face) overpower the satire, because, if there was one failing in the play, it was this.

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