Reviewed by James Karas
The Last Epistle of Tightrope Time is a one-actor play written and played by Walter Borden. The background and development of the play is an epic story of its own. Borden tells us that he started making notes for an autobiography in 1974. He subsequently decided to fashion a play out of his life’s experiences and his attempt went through four versions until 2016 when he finally ended up with The Last Epistle of Tightrope Time was produced in Nova Scotia. That was 42 years of gestation and re-writes.
The fifth and final version of the play was produced in Nova Scotia in 2022 after 48 years of continuous evolution, according to Borden in his introduction to the published copy of the play.
Director Peter Hinton-Davis tells us that he worked with Borden for four years “to refine and sculpt the text for performance.” They had “over 40 years of material and crafting it into a new version for 2023 was …the challenge.” Borden described the experience with a beautiful simile: “It has been like taking a chisel and hammer to a large block of marble to reveal the sculpture already within.”
In Last Epistle Borden is on the stage for 90 minutes without a break. The play has 10 characters which are listed as Black Man Talking who is the Griot or the Keeper of Record in West African culture, the Estelusti Spirit, Guide who Borden tells us pays homage to his Indigenous ancestry and the Sphinx or the Teacher that pays homage to his African ancestry, all according to Borden.
The printed play (but not the Tarragon Theatre’s program) lists the following as Shadow Folk of the Village: Child, Griot at his earliest age. Young Man, The Griot as an adolescent. Mother, a protector. The Pastor, a proselytizer. The Minister of Defence, a militant. Ethiopia, a drag queen. Adie Day, a lady of the night. Chuck, a hustler and Old Woman, a sage.
Borden tells about being on an overcrowded streetcar with only one empty seat and that was beside him but nobody would sit on it. He expresses his reaction in dense poetry that is difficult to digest reading and is almost incomprehensible hearing for the first time.
I had the same problem with the rest of the play and must confess that I understand relatively little and enjoyed almost none.
It is made up of dense poetry that is abstruse, abstract, far-fetched
and, in a solo performance, almost incomprehensible.
Borden’s use of colourful language, extended
metaphors and similes that may be absorbing to read, but they do not add any
clarity to his recitation of his life if that is the intent. The play is not a
memoir or biography of Borden but somehow looks forward to the future that unfortunately
did not resonate with me or I simply did not get.
The Last Epistle of Tightrope Time by Walter Borden continues until October 15, 2023 at the Tarragon Theatre, 30 Bridgman Ave. Toronto, Ontario. www.tarragontheatre.com
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