Studies in Motion was one of the most recent shows I've seen, which was this past Fall at Can Stage. The images and choreography in this production were stunning. This play was about Eadweard Muybridge, who studied locomotion and used multiple cameras to study motion in animals and people. The play examined one of his major studies, where by the end of three months he had over one hundred thousand photos. It also showed the resistance against his studies, a great deal of which came from him using nude subjects/models. He also went to trial for killing his wife's lover, which was not the focus of the story, but the scene where he shot the man was one of the best scenes in the play, as they used multiple actors to map out the way the victim fell and staggered about as he died.
Multi-media was a huge element in this production and it was used so seamlessly and effectively. The entire show was just completely engaging from start to finish.
Also, my friends and I were in the second row, AND just a couple seats over from us, sat this actor, who I didn't know his name, but I recognized him from another favourite show of mine, East of Berlin, which I saw at Tarragon a number of years ago.
East of Berlin by Hannah Moscovitch is probably one of my favourite scripts or productions I've seen, most likely due to how intense it is. Last Fall, I started thinking this may be a show I would like to direct with Black Box Fire soon, though it is quite an undertaking.
The production I saw had one of the best opening images I have ever seen on stage. The main character was seated in a chair, and he was only lit from a top light which was lighting him from above a ceiling fan which very slowly was turning, causing the shaft of light to shift over top of the actor who was smoking so these little wafts of smoke just wafted up through the light. It was very simple, but extremely effective at setting the tone and atmosphere of the production.
The very basic plot is that this man, Rudi, after having left his home in Paraguay about ten years ago,has returned to see his father. The play goes in and out of the present and past. We find out that Rudi's family is German and they escaped to Paraguay after WWII. Rudi knows nothing of this until he finds out from a classmate that not only was his father a war criminal, but Rudi's father was a doctor at Auschwitz who performed experiments as well as the selections. The play is about Rudi's discovery of this, and his inherited guilt of his father's past. One of my favourite lines is from this play, Rudi says of his father that what he did in the war 'revolutionized our notion of evil'.
My favourite play, for a number of years now, has been The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh. It's an extremely popular play, there have been many productions, professional and not, which is I think must say more about the text than anything else. It's about a three hour play, and not an easy play to tackle, especially since it requires a number of strong male performers, and those are often hard to come by.
I've seen two productions, one at Can Stage, but the first one I saw was in Calgary, by Ground Zero, which I thought was the better of the two productions. I can't really explain why I love this play, or what it was about the production. It was intense, and completely captivating. It's just really great story telling. It's a really good read, it's probably a better read than some of the actual productions out there.
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