Hunter Gatherers

 

 

At Havana Theatre until November 15, 2014
brownpapertickets.com

Posted November 2, 2014

Hunter Gatherers isn’t funny, not really. But I bet you’ll laugh all the way to the end. You  really have to hunt for a script this funny.

Vegetarians and animal lovers must keep reminding themselves, “It’s just a play.” That’s not a real lamb you hear bleating from the bottom of the cardboard box. And souls that are sensitive to simulated sex on stage may have to cover their eyes for, well, much of Act 2.

But American playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb has a point to make and he makes in the most hilarious way: our civilized behaviour is paper-thin. When the old man throws a bloody steak on the BBQ is it really that far removed from him hunting the animal down, butchering it and bringing it home to the wife and kids?

And it’s not just in the kitchen where our socially acceptable conduct breaks down. David Suzuki once suggested in a lecture: “Take your clothes off, stand in front of a mirror and look at yourself: you’re an animal.”

In Hunter Gatherers, Richard and Pam are preparing for an anniversary celebration with old friends Tom and Wendy whose anniversary falls on the same date. They do it every year. Richard cooks; Tom and Richard wrestle; Pam and Wendy reminisce. But that’s not all they do every year.

Studly Richard is an artist: “I’m welding something big and long right now.” Lusty Wendy, a Raiki practitioner, breathing heavily, “Of course you are.” Wimpy Tom, known as a kid for healing wounded birds, is a doctor. Pam: “Being good is what I am.”

Give this foursome a couple of hours together and it’s all, “Me Tarzan, you Jane.” (Set designer Carolyn Rapanos picks up on this with stage left a lushly painted, tropical jungle framed with masks and spears.)

Ryan Gladstone, founder of Monster Theatre, directs Hunter Gatherers for Staircase Theatre and he makes sure the one-liners just keep coming at you. But it’s some of the non-sequiturs that really get to you. Pam: “You remember having fun, Tom?” Tom: “I’m a doctor.”

Pippa Mackie (Pam), Maryanne Renzetti (Wendy), Jay Clift (Richard) and Peter Carlone (Tom) throw themselves into this hot and horny fray with, as they say, reckless abandon. Mackie begins Pam’s journey all sweetness and light and ends up. . . well, somewhere else. Horniness is written all over Renzetti from the moment she enters Richard and Pam’s apartment complaining about Tom who’s parking the car. Renzetti lets it all hang out after a trip to the kitchen to ‘help’ Richard; few are as bodacious and flamboyant as Renzetti when the script demands it – and this script really, really does. Carlone, conservatively dressed, maintains a meek and mild demeanor almost all the way through – although at one point he hollers, “Quiet, bitch.” And Jay Clift makes a boorish, testosterone-fuelled jock, who, ironically, is given to poetic, lyrical language that makes his grossness even funnier.

Opening night audience laughed its socks off and I did, too. But Hunter Gatherers is not for the faint of heart. If your sweetie calls you “Honey Lamb” this play might cut too close to the bone. And if the sight of a bare bum being humped isn’t what you go to the theatre to see, gather ye rosebuds elsewhere.

But the playwright’s intentions are pure: at our peril do we believe we are completely refined and that we will be forgiven our trespasses against commonly held notions of civility. Obvious case in point: the recent firing of CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi. While few would argue that BDSM is ‘bad’, non-consensual BDSM is.