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Friday July 5th, 2002
By JON KAPLAN
Whew - the heat's finally broken, making that running around from
venue to venue and sitting in some of the steambath-like spaces
manageable.
COOL CRUISE
That wasn't the case for opening night. And as if the weather wasn't
bad enough, Jorge Molina and John Tokatlidis, the guys performing
Louis And Dave in an old Buick station wagon, had to deal with
construction noise 20 feet away in the Royal St. George's parking lot.
It's a potentially gimmicky thing, with the two actors in the front
seat and the audience of four in the back for the 15-minute show. But
the performers pulled it off as a tantalizing slice-of-life episode.
How? Good focus and a funny, if one-joke, script about pals who have
a weekly date cruising the streets trying to score with, as they
would say, stacked chicks.
No more from me. With a script that short, any more recounted plot
would shoot the script's wad, as it were.
But I wonder how the neighbours in this quiet Annex space react to
shows several times nightly, with the windows of the car open and the
actors yellingŠ well, not the most politically correct statements.
That first night one of the Fringe volunteers was nervously hovering
around the houses across the street - with the heat, a number of
people were on their porches - giving out flyers for the show,
convincing the resident non-paying audience that it was indeed a work
of theatre.
Maybe they can calm disgruntled area dwellers by telling them that
Molina and Tokatlidis are part of a film shoot. The line could be
that they're stand-ins for the real stars, Jack Black and Adam
Sandler, who will be by on - oh, let's say July 15, the day after the
Fringe closes - to do the real camera work.
Me, on that hot opening night, I was just glad there was only one
person in the back seat of the car with me, with lots of airspace
between us. But don't worry if it gets hot again - the show's short,
and the guys provide hand-held fans for the audience.
BIBLICAL BATTLE
I was converted last night. It happened at the Tarragon with the help
of a pair of visiting companies from Montreal. It started out as a
battle between an Old Testament tale (Job: The HipHop Musical) and a
New Testament prayer meeting ( This I Know). In fact, it turned out
to be no contest.
John Mounsteven's This I Know was the winner of last year's Montreal
English Critics' Circle Best New Play award. I don't know why. Set at
a fundamentalist religious meeting run by father Joe, the show turns
the audience into the congregation, listening to Joe (Jory Berger)
smoothly preach his doctrine and showing its results with a trio of
converts (Sarah Bezanson, Jason Howell and Mounsteven).
There's some skilled interweaving of the tales, which include Joe's
version of creation and his particular brand of Christianity - the
latter uses some nice sepia drawings by co-director Sarah Blumel -
but the testifying by the converts goes in predictable directions and
the script is stretched thin for 75 minutes.
The energetic cast is good, though, and their a cappella songs are
the highlight of the production. Too bad the stories weren't more
engrossing.
NO BARGAIN BASEMENT
Two hours later I stood in line waiting to go into Job: The Hip-Hop
Musical, wondering if this was going to be one of those dispiriting
days at the Fringe. You know, when you see a bunch of shows that make
it obvious that Fringe works are chosen by lottery - nothing really
holds your interest beyond a performance here and a cute gag there.
I'd seen last year's Fringe offering by Job's creator, Foque Dans Le
Tete Productions, with the mouthful title Everything You Wanted To
Know About Yourself But Were Afraid To Ask Freud. It was spottily
entertaining but didn't blow me away the way it did other people.
And I have to admit that hiphop and I don't have much acquaintance -
I'm a classical music type.
Well, actors/writers/performers Eli Batalion and Jerome Saibil
slapped me silly. They've written an updated version of the enigmatic
Job story, in which
God and the devil wager on what the prosperous title figure will do
if his prosperity is taken away, and whether he'll still be a "good"
man. They've set it in an international record company where Job,
who's risen through the ranks, is tested by the company prez and the
suspicious, conniving vice prez (the latter thinks that a demoted Job
will curse the president and is only working hard because he's been
rewarded so often.)
For a full hour of clever and tireless work, the company of two -
they've also written the music, along with Paul Bercovitch - play all
the parts, among them Job's wife, the three friends who offer little
support in his time of trouble and another office worker who provides
some final words of wisdom about questioning the higher powers. Hell,
the duo even shift back and forth playing the same character, at
times doubling up and offering us two mirror-image figures for the
price of one.
Blending Prokofiev, Mozart and Bizet with a hiphop rhythm and enough
internal rhymes to drive Stephen Sondheim crazy, Saibil and Batalion
never stop with the jokes and the wit. They can even josh themselves
when the rhymes don't quite fit. Where else are you gonna hear
someone aurally pair the name of economist Thomas Malthus with the
phrase "solve this?" And they never drop a beat. Amazing.
OK, guys, converted. In my 14 years of fringing, your show is one of
the most creative I've seen.
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