Russian Hall (600 Campbell Avenue) to April 19, 2025
Tickets: Pay-what-you-choose $20/$30/$40 from www.eventbrite.ca
Posted April 12, 2025
Dave Mott has a lot to say about the state of the world judging from his pre-show remarks on opening night of the world premiere of Dead Drone, Mott’s playwriting debut. But it’s not about words, he says, it’s about action and he’s putting his money where his mouth is, as the saying goes, because Dead Drone is full of action.
A founding member of Upintheair Theatre, Mott is best known for the rEvolver Festival, a twelve-day festival in May that celebrates innovation and risk-taking. So, it’s no surprise that his play is innovative and risk-taking. That’s Mott territory. The press release reads, “DEAD DRONE is a striking allegory that examines the impact of patriarchal hierarchies, digital consumerism, and societal control, questioning what it means to love in an age dominated by social media and substance dependence.”
Dead Drone, however, I found almost completely inaccessible although reading the “Definitions” beforehand in the glossy printed program (wow) would have helped immeasurably. If you see Dead Drone, take time in the newly renovated Russian Hall lobby (wow, again) to read them.
Credit: Dave Mott
From the programme: “Beeples or Humanbeeings” (Chloe Payne and Sarah Roa) are “a genetically modified race of enslaved subhumans created by The Government in response to the extinction of natural bee populations.” And in praise of Payne and Roa, they are amazingly bee-like in their physicality especially that funny little ‘hand’ movement that bees make. Costume designer Florence Barrett puts them in black jumpsuits with what looks like old-fashioned motorcycle goggles on their foreheads and bobbing antennae on their heads.
I never did figure out exactly who Jenny (Evelyn Chew) and Sam (Paulo Ribeiro) were supposed to be, but I (mistakenly) thought she might be the Queen bee of the hive and he, perhaps the successful drone to fertilize her. Wrong. They are, I assume, having now read the program notes, climate refugees escaping toxic clouds, “a result of dirty industry practice and massive ongoing wildfires that burn all over the planet”. Under director and dramaturg Tamara McCarthy’s guidance, Chew and Ribeiro hurl themselves with mucho gusto into their roles. But the two stories – one about bees and Royal Jelly, and the other about climate change lockdown – never came together for me.
And then there’s The Mountaineer (Darcey Johnson), seated high up in a windowed tower, manipulating puppets (by Randi Edmundson) which then appear on two large, round screens that look like huge telecommunication transceivers. This has something to do with “weirdcore” and I had to go online to find out what that was about: “an Aesthetic that that is from the early to mid 2010s that is based on weirdness, liminal spaces, eyes, and Nostalgia.” Puppet designer Edmundson explains the merging of puppets with hi-tech, galactic images that Mott’s script requires: “Then we discovered the multiplane camera set up. Borrowed from stop motion animation, the multiplane acts a little like a toy theatre, creating a playing space for the puppets . . . This leaves us with dislocated ghosts floating freely in strange, weirdcore worlds: the language of The Mountaineer.” I have no idea where The Mountaineer fit in.
Credit: Dave Mott
Set design, always a challenge in the Russian Hall, is by David Roberts, with terrific lighting by Alexandra Caprara.
I was anxious about twenty minutes in, struggling to figure it all out and curious about a small group in the audience (seated on chairs that were arranged in four banks around the performance area) who were laughing loudly throughout. Were we actually seeing the same show?
Climbing the mountain? Crossing the river? Drinking the Royal Jelly? Hungering for cinnamon buns? I simply could not connect the dots.
For the record: I have a thing for bees. When those first drowsy March bumblebees find it too cold or too hungry to return to wherever it is they live, I feed them, keep them warm until, like a small miracle after lapping, lapping, lapping honey or maple syrup with their long proboscis from a saucer, they take wing. I argue passionately in my garden club for the preservation of flowering trees and the planting of bee-loving shrubs and flowers. Like Mott, I am worried about a future without bees.
Dead Drone, produced by Upintheair Theatre, should have been right up my alley. It just wasn’t.