Reviewed by James
Karas
***** (out of five)
Toronto’s redoubtable Tarragon Theatre opened its 45th season with a fraud. I speak of Blind Date, a ninety minute play by Rebecca Northan which is surreptitiously called “a creation.”
The “creation” is based on the premise that an actor, the same Rebecca
Northan in this case, can choose randomly a man from the audience and go on a “blind
date” with him right in front of our eyes, a date that lasts almost 90 minutes.
The result on the night I saw the production (September 17, 2015) was an
infectiously hilarious evening at the theatre but can we really believe the
premise of an instant blind date?
Rebecca Northan as Mimi. Photo: Michael Meehan
Let’s start with Northan. She plays Mimi, a woman from Avignon with a
delicious French accent, a clown’s red nose and extraordinary comic talent. She
can turn an insignificant line into a comical gem. She uses the usual panoply
of a genuine comedian: timing, intonation, body language, in short, genius for
comedy.
The clincher here is not that she has all of those characteristics but
that she practices them to superb effect with a man that she just plucked from
the audience who could easily be a dunce who freezes on stage.
On the day I saw the creation, Northan picked a young man from the
audience named Dach. Dach is a self-employed equipment salesman who works from
home. He went to the theatre with his girlfriend whom he
had dated eight times.
Dach gave an outstanding comic performance. He was convincingly a bit
nervous on his unrehearsed transformation from spectator to star in a few
seconds and he was very funny. Dach had to deal with a glass of wine that had
fruit flies in it; give personal information and leave with Mimi to go to her
apartment carrying a glass of wine. The police stops them and Mimi hides their
glasses of wine between her legs. Dach has to reach under her dress to get the
glasses from there so Mimi can step out of the car for the sobriety test. Can
you hear the laughter?
The creation has two more characters who work in the bar and Northan
turns these minor parts into comic marvels. Christy Bruce serves wine and Kristian
Reimer is the bar manager but both get laughs by simply serving a couple of
glasses of wine and reacting to Mimi and Dach. Bruce and Reimer are also
scenographers and Bruce is an alternate Mimi.
If you were in the theatre, you would be sitting on the edge of your
seat laughing but since you are not, you are no doubt getting heart
palpitations at the accusation of fraud. It is quite understandable.
Well, j’accuse Northan of
creating and acting in a piece that is simply too good to be the result of a
random pick from the audience. The play, the acting and the ambience that
Northan creates is simply too good to be true as she contends. Is it possible
for Northan to pick up energy from her guest, create situations, come up with replies
to his comments and create extraordinary comedy spontaneously? Remember this is
not someone being picked from the audience as on some television show, kept on
stage for a couple of minutes, perhaps mildly ridiculed and sent packing after a
couple of cheap laughs.
Dach is treated with respect, Mimi recalls what he says long after he
has said something and creates comedy from these comments.
This was also one of the rare occasions when the performers have the
audience in the palms of their hands and can make them laugh at will.
Is it possible that someone is so talented that she can do this every night
or is it just a setup? Northan tells us that she has been having blind dates on
stage for some seven years and she has trained other women to do the same. Good
grief!
The only solution is for you to see Blind Date and we will have a
referendum on the issue. We can put it on the ballot on October 19 or have one
of our polling experts tell us if this is comic creativity at its most
mindboggling 19 times out of 20 with no margin of error.
______
This is the weirdest review I've ever read.
ReplyDeleteAgreed...It's pretty random and a bit convoluted. A setup? It's called improv, I think. And in my mind, every real "blind date" is basically instantaneous; one minute you're not on a date with a stranger, the next minute, you are.
DeleteMy comments were made with my tongue in my cheek. There was nothing but praise and admiration in my review for an inspired actor and creator! Read my review again.
DeleteDo you seriously think that she's brought in 28 different ringers? Think about it; she's literally been doing this hundreds of times and not a single one of them has ever spilled the beans? Really? How about this: what about going to the show again to see for yourself how different the show can be and how a different dude can completely change everything, and then report back? Also, you could take a drop-in improv class to learn how seasoned improvers are able to spin straw into gold even with complete beginners.
ReplyDeleteHow unfortunate that such limited insight sits behind a pen (or keyboard) that bears any weight. Perhaps a little jealousy at not having been chosen is the ink here. It does speak to the astute instincts of a seasoned genius improve artists. Brava team Blind Date for continuing to find the diamonds in the rough. You make us all shine.
ReplyDeleteWell, the dates aren't chosen "at random," are they? They're chosen based on a combination of Northan's extensive practice as an improviser, actor, and communicator (or "training"), and basic interpersonal emotional resonance (vulgarly known as "chemistry"). I also don't really get why you'd give it five stars and then describe the show as a sham and imagine that its best elements are illusory only.
ReplyDeleteBut what bothers me most about the accusation that Northan is rigging her dates is that your assumption is sexist. It is an argument founded on two assumptions: 1) that one woman couldn't possibly be well-trained and talented enough to improvise successfully and entertainingly as consistently as Northan does, and 2) that there is a vast armada of male actors who are SO talented that even the total unknowns among them (they would have to be unknowns, lest they be recognized by the viewer) can convince an entire audience that their alleged well-rehearsed acting is actually just the natural, awkward gregariousness of an unprepared volunteer. In short, you'd rather believe 300 men are legendary actors than believe that one woman is a gifted and practiced improviser. That's ridiculous, and I'm surprised that someone who has seen as much theatre as you have could so profoundly misunderstand how performance, interaction, and staging work.
Blind Date is 90 minutes of utter joy; its awkwardnesses are real, vulnerable moments of humanity that total strangers are laying bare for each other, and for us, and that's where its beauty comes from. If you don't see in Northan's performances that she is engaging in this process of discovery alongside her dates, and that her talent lies in providing space and care and encouragement so her dates--and, vicariously, we--can experience theatrical, performative magic and let something about them take themselves by surprise, then I strongly suggest you go to a second performance and check your assumptions.
See above guy....it's meant to be tongue in cheek! He LIKED IT! Five stars, lots of praise....lost the thread a bit, but not meant to be an insult!
ReplyDelete