|
Feb. 1, 2008
A disjointed performance
Arts Club Theatre rock opera offers crowd a taste of everything.
BAILA LAZARUS
Take a bit of Oliver, add some klezmer music, a little Shakespearean dialogue, some Oklahoma and a hefty dose of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and what do you have? I'm not really sure, but if anyone else can figure this one out, I'd appreciate it. I'm still trying to decide if I'm intrigued enough with the notorious Black Rider to see it a second time, or if I had enough of it the first time and never want to go back.
I have to give full kudos to my "date" for sitting through a straight (no intermission) 100 minutes of the play. I wouldn't have faulted him at all for wanting to flee the Arts Club Theatre at the first sign of actors in heavy white and black grease paint walking like robots and other freak-show antics. But, like me, he was intrigued enough to let the rock opera play out and, like me, he ended up being quite entertained.
Not such a surprise given the content of Black Rider is derived from the writing of William S. Burroughs, the ultramodern theatre style of Robert Wilson and the music of Tom Waits. First staged in Edmonton in 1998, by Michael Scholar, Jr., as a Fringe Festival play, it's now running as part of Vancouver's international performing arts festival PuSh.
The cast is incredibly well trained, in everything from opera to acrobatics, and are accompanied by a live three-piece orchestra, which includes a Chapman stick, one of the most unique instruments you'll ever see.
As entertaining as the performance was, however, the same regard can't be given to the story line. Based on a German folktale, the play follows a city clerk who has to learn to be a hunter in order to marry the woman he loves. OK, this much I understood. The clerk is a sad case of a hunter and can't hit a deer if his life depended on it, so his beloved is in danger of being forced to marry a better hunter, according to her father's wishes. Starting to sound very Shakespearean here.
Enter Peg Leg (played to devilish excellence by Scholar), who provides the hunter with enough magic bullets to kill plenty of game and prove to his love that he can provide for her (leading into one of the most hilariously macabre songs of the night – "There's Blood Upon the Bridal Wreath," sung to a tune cheery enough to spruce up any Theatre Under the Stars production). Pretty soon, he gets addicted to using the bullets, to the point where he can't kill anything without them.
I'd say the plot is advanced through about half the scenes in the play, but, to be honest, I'm not quite sure what the other half were about. There was a circus barker entreating people to see the dog-faced boy and the crow girl. There was a woman who had a short monologue sounding exactly like Daffy Duck. There was a lot of singing, some people dressed as deer, a lot more singing and capes and tights flying everywhere. There was even an obvious reference to Elmer Fudd of Bugs Bunny fame. For a while, it looked like some inmates had escaped from Belleview and had joined forces with early cast-offs of American Idol.
It brought back fond memories of a place I used to work in Edmonton, and I can see why it might have worked as a one-hour Fringe play – but nothing longer.
Since the story is based on a folktale, the presence of a moral is expected and it opens up the door to discussion of how far one should go for love. But the ending doesn't seem to follow that questioning. Without giving anything away, the climax, to me, was just one more part of the play that seemed to have no reason behind it. And this underlines the play's biggest weakness – the impossible-to-follow scenes that not only seemed disjointed from one to another, but don't seem to make sense on their own.
It occurred to me that one of the things the play lacked was an English translation, like they have in other operas. Since most people couldn't understand half of what was being said in the songs, why not have a readout above the stage, so the audience can follow along?
This is a play for which you will have to stretch your boundaries, but you'll definitely be entertained.
Black Rider runs at the Arts Club Granville Island Stage until Feb. 9.
Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, photographer and illustrator living in Vancouver. Her work can be seen at www.orchiddesigns.net.
^TOP
|
