Starwalker

At The York Theatre until March 5, 2023
Tickets from $25 at www.thecultch.com or 604-251-1363

Posted February 19, 2023

I love opening nights: the anticipation, the buzz, the noisy lobby before the show; the audience ready, willing and eager to be transported. And the opening of Starwalker was, as opening nights go, a blockbuster. The Lieutenant Governor of BC – the Honourable Janet Austin (accompanied by her Honorary Aide-de-Camp) – had a few congratulatory words to say. Four of the Musqueam band’s Tsatsu Stalkqayu (Coastal Wolf Pack) dance group, in full regalia, sang, drummed and danced a welcome song. It was all very impressive as was appropriate for the world premiere of the new musical by Oji-Cree writer, composer and librettist Corey Payette whose previous musical, Children of God, garnered him the British Columbia Reconciliation Award in 2021. Commissioned by The Musical Stage Company (Toronto), produced by Urban Ink and Raven Theatre, and presented by The Cultch, Starwalker’s opening night was a really big deal.

The downside of opening nights can be the over-the-top exuberance of friends and families of the writer, the design team, the crew, the musicians and the performers. Payette and Starwalker’s supporters sounded legion and they woo-hoo-ed and thundered their appreciation from beginning to end. There were two such screamers a couple of rows behind me and my guest so our experience of Starwalker was filtered through their raucous enthusiasm – enthusiasm which I did not, unfortunately, always share.

However, to be fair, Starwalker – part drag show, part musical love story – invites that reaction. When seven guys, outrageously costumed by Alaia Hamer and choreographed by Ralph Escamillan, present themselves at the top of the show as drag queens in the House of Borealis, a fictitious East Van drag club, it IS a full-on woo-hoo moment. But as the story of Oji-Cree Eddie Starwalker, aka Star, progresses, the musical lurches awkwardly from drag show – and rowdiness – to the heartfelt struggle of this young man to figure out who he is, and back again to drag show. I wanted way more story, less woo-hoo, and at least a few more narrative gaps filled in.

What do we know? Eddie Starwalker meets queer drag queen Levi in a park and they fall in love – instantly. Indeed, Levi sings, “Loved You Since The Day I Was Born”. Levi invites Star back to the House of Borealis, the drag club where he performs. Star’s eyes are opened; maybe this is who he’s meant to be.

However, the story leaves a lot of questions about Star’s past. We learn that when the going gets tough, he’s a runaway going all the way back to his childhood. As an adult, he’s been turning tricks (“thousands of beds” he tells us in song), living rough; and we discover that he has lost the connection to his First Nations roots. But – and here’s a no-surprise spoiler – by the end of the story he comes up with a jingle dress, a drum and the wherewithal for ritual smudging. Just how he gets to that point isn’t clear.

There are, however, some outstanding performances beginning with Stewart Adam McKensy (as Mother Borealis) who appears in flowing white satin robes and sporting a fabulous wavy blond wig. McKensy is show-stoppingly charismatic and has a voice like warm honey. Payette has created a memorable character in ‘Mama’: loving, heart of gold, mother-of-us-all. He/she’s a character who provides refuge to all the lost young men who struggle to fit in. McKensy fills the role to sweetly overflowing.

Jeffrey Follis, as Levi, is delightfully animated: arms and legs and hands in constant motion. Puckish. Playful. It’s no wonder Star – and the rest of us – fall for him.

And Ryan Maschke as Sissy is taut, wound tight as a spring and the perfect foil for Follis’s Levi.

Ojibwe storyteller Dillan Chiblow is identity-confused Star in plaid shirt and baggy jeans.  And, of course, much of Act 1 is the lead-up to Star putting on a red satin gown, a tiara and making his House of Borealis debut. We know it’s coming and it surely does. Chiblow has a big theatre-filling voice and the songs he sings with Follis, especially In The Starlight, linger long after the curtain falls. With musical direction by Sean Bayntun, Starwalker features almost twenty songs.

Jesse Alvarez, Connor Parnall, August Elzinga and Ralph Escamillan complete the cast.

Set design is by Anna Shearing with acres of red velvet, drapey curtains as well as an exterior location under a dark weeping tree; lighting design by Jonathan Kim turns the York stage into a believable if slightly scuzzy club that lights up on show nights.

Starwalker is a big, ambitious attempt to  bring together the two-spirited indigenous community and the drag community. But is it a drag show or is it a musical with an interesting story to tell? I think some in the opening night audience were confused on that point and the balance is just awkward.

Overheard as I exited the theatre: “Well, wasn’t that a lot of fun!” I think Starwalker could have been a whole lot more than that and I suspect writer Corey Payette was aiming  much higher.