It’s patently unfair to write a review of a raw play reading. In most cases readings barely deserve a three-line preview.
But on Monday night, Daniel MacIvor, a Canadian playwriting icon, gave a reading at St. Albert’s Arden Theatre of his latest work-in-progress and his reputation made it too tempting to miss.
Combining the deadpan with mockery, MacIvor presented I, Animal as a trio of monologues that draws out what it means to be human.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Toronto-based playwright, he is in the same league as singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan, actor Gordon Pinsent or novelist Michael Ondaatje. When MacIvor speaks, doors open.
Given his standing, it was no surprise that about 50 actors, poets, writers and theatre aficionados sat in a semi-circle around the playwright cocooned in a shaft of light.
With the ghost of a smirk, the theatrical minimalist took a script of loose pages that were placed on a chair and dramatically flung them over his shoulder. Everyone laughed and it broke the ice. But a minute into speaking he looked back at the messy pile and excused himself to tidy it.
“I’m actually a bit of neatnik,” MacIvor smiled, all the while speaking in the soothing, gentle voice of a counsellor.
Within moments he put on pair of glasses and morphed into the character of Man in Scrubs, a black queer man who spends the better part of his monologue shouting at Larry, his horny canine companion.
Adopting a loud voice and broad arm movements, MacIvor gave life to an emotionally flamboyant nurse who kvetches his way through life with a contradictory mix of fatalism and hope.
His second character, Boy in Hoodie, exhumes a teenager who doesn’t fit in and is bored with life until he takes a picture of a dead cat and posts it on the Internet. To reveal more would destroy the gobsmacking punch-in-the-gut surprise at the end.
Suffice to say that MacIvor successfully embodied an anguished teenager with a believable soulless voice and hunched shoulders.
And in his final monologue, Woman in Prada, the playwright tackles a divorced woman facing old age alongside her toyboy. Afraid of facing the truth, she is prepared to compromise her self-respect.
In a short hour, MacIvor philosophized on a mind-blowing range of topics from race, lost love, alienation, death, fitting in, teenage sex, December-May unions and parent-child relationships. It was almost too much to absorb in one sitting.
The icing on the cake was a 30-minute question-and-answer period that revealed MacIvor as someone who is not only open about his sexual orientation, but a playwright equally forthright about his work.
If his theatrical raison d’être could be summarized, it might be Monday night’s quote: “I believe the text ignites a performance. The performance is the centre. It is the conduit for the energy in the room.”
