Available online from Studio 58 at www.studio58.ca until December 6, 2020.
Free.
Posted December 3, 2020
Mark Chavez and Ryan Beil are two of the funniest guys in town. Chavez is one half of the Pyjama Men, a long-standing Vancouver Fringe Festival comedy fave as well as the writer of three of the best East Van pantos. Beil has appeared on the Arts Club stage, at Bard on the Beach and, with Chavez, appears weekly in The Sunday Service, an improv comedy group. These are two very funny guys.
So why is Theatre: The Play (co-written and co-directed) by Beil and Chavez so not-funny?
The concept is promising: Nearlake town council is considering terminating the contract on the land leased by Nearlake Theatre Festival & Bar & Grill and turning it into a much-needed landfill. Nearlake, “a little backwater piece-of-shit town”, hasn’t been supporting the festival sufficiently to justify the theatre company’s existence. Something must be done – and soon – or the company is “fucked”.
In the play, Dudley (Malina Flukiger), the flamboyant artistic director determined to show town council “the significance of theatre as an art form”, hits on an idea. The company will mount a new, innovative take on the Scottish play; it will be called (drum roll, please) Macbeth: War on Christmas. With every Shakespeare festival busting itself to be relevant, innovative and getting bums in seats, Theatre: The Play clearly pokes fun at the Shaw Festival (at Niagara-on-the-Lake) and Bard on the Beach (Vanier Park).
Dudley assembles a cast and crew; rehearsals begin. But it’s chaos with the actors bickering (or running off to Antarctica) and stage manager Sally (Montana Lehmann) struggling valiantly but largely unsuccessfully to herd these cats. It’s bedlam with the addition of hand-puppet penguins. Even helicoptering in Merill (Quinn Churchill), an ancient celebrity crone, does not increase the odds of a successful run.
Echoing my own thoughts, stage manager Sally says, “This is an unmitigated disaster”. And when director Dudley, responding to a cynical board member, hollers, “Fuck you. Eat my shit with a spoon. And then go die”, I was ready to turn the computer off and watch something, anything, on Netflix. (That line, btw, gets repeated later in the play. As if once wasn’t enough.)
Chavez and Beil, in their program notes, write, “This is a fluff piece. If you are searching for some bigger meaning or deeper understanding about Theatre: The Play, you will not find that here.” They go on to say, “We believe strongly in the power, influence, and art form of Comedy.” Fair enough. But it must be funny, right?
This Studio 58 group of young adults throws themselves into it with gusto and I liked the sort of radio play/stage play hybrid with sound effects being made by the performers in full view: the sound of a helicopter, a ski doo racing across Antarctica, for example. And the miming is fun: fist fights – distanced by 2 meters – between face-masked opponents. Indeed, everyone in the show is face-masked and care has been taken to keep the actors meters apart. And, of course, there’s no audience others than those sitting at home.
Times are tough. And theatre companies are working hard to stay afloat. Studio 58, the theatre program at Langara, is probably not in as much danger of closing down as independent companies are but Theatre: The Play is not Studio’s finest hour. If it weren’t so harsh, I would ask for one hour, thirty-one minutes and forty-two seconds of my life back.