Reviewed by James
Karas
Mr. Truth, created
and performed by Lauren Gillis and Alaine Hutton, is experimental theatre. That
means what you see could be unusual, unexpected, bewildering, confusing or
simply incomprehensible. Mr. Truth has all these attributes
and perhaps more. I did say incomprehensible?
The show starts with some music and one of the performers running around
the stage and among the audience in the tiny BMO Incubator rallying us to get
involved. She repeats phrases like “Are you ready to have fun?” and tells a
couple not particularly funny jokes which are received with ecstatic guffaws by
some in the audience.
On a large screen we see some women running in a forest for a couple of
minutes. Gillis and Hutton appear and we are treated to a lengthy illustrated
lecture on masturbation. We get an
almost clinical description of clitoral stimulation by one of the performers
while she is performing the act on the other one (Sorry, I don’t know who is
who). The actual site being stimulated is judiciously hidden from the crowd but
the description is quite vivid and detailed.
Sex dominates the play in various descriptive forms from dream sequences
(which I did not get) to the sado-masochistic which I understood better. The
two performers take on a large array of characters both male and female and
they display highly developed acting techniques and an ability to jump from one
characterization to the next. You may want to complain that the characters that
they take on are neither developed nor understood and even in a seventy-minute
show you are hard pressed to remember much of what is happening or who is who.
But the all-pervasive sex with suitable raunchy language does stay with
you.
We see a tall person in a black cape with a white hoodie and hollow
black face walk across the stage. I don’t know what provokes him or what his
presence indicates. Presumably he is Mr. Truth and I have no idea why he is not
Ms Truth or perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Truth.
The dream sequences are illustrated with what looks like an
electrocardiograph on the screen and I am not sure what the squiggles on it
meant, if anything.
As I said, a few members of the audience reacted enthusiastically and
laughed with unalloyed exuberance at the beginning on lines that were devoid of
comedy. That is pretty much expected from some people on opening night and you
wait to see how much stamina they have to
maintain their vigour. By the end of Mr. Truth even the most enthusiastic
had petered out into almost complete (and blessed) silence.
After writing this I read the Creators’ Note in the programme which
bears repeating:
If someone told you that this show was structured rhythmically and
dramaturgically to resemble a female orgasm, or a woman’s orgasm, or a feminine
orgasm, or any orgasm of the non-aristotelian variety, would that change your
viewing experience?
I don’t know the
differences among a female, a woman’s and
feminine orgasm let alone the rhythm or dramaturgical structure of an orgasm.
I stand by what I said
in my first paragraph and wonder how many attributes I missed. That is the
whole point of experimental theatre.
Mr. Truth is part of the 2018 Riser Project that includes
Tell Me What It’s Called, Speaking of Sneaking and Everything I Couldn’t Tell You.
________
Mr. Truth, created and performed by Lauren Gillis and
Alaine Hutton continues until November 24, 2018 at The Theatre Centre, BMO
Incubator, 1115 Queen St. West, Toronto, Ontario. www.theatrecentre.org.
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