Circle Game revives Joni for next gen

THEATRE

CIRCLE GAME

2Created and directed by Andrew Cohen and Anna Kuman. A Firehall Arts Centre production. At the Firehall Arts Centre on Wednesday, May 3. Continues until May 20

In a telephone interview prior to the launch of Circle Game: Reimagining the Music of Joni Mitchell, creators Andrew Cohen and Anna Kuman said that their intent was to recast the Alberta-born songwriter’s work for millennials, and judging by audience reaction at the last preview before opening night, their plot is working. Seniors and 20-somethings alike responded enthusiastically, as well they might: Circle Game sports an effervescent and ridiculously talented six-person cast, and is effectively lit and staged.

If your art of choice is theatre—or musical theatre, in particular—you’ll probably love it.

Musicians and hard-core Mitchell fans might respond differently. I’m both, and found myself continually questioning the “reimagining” part of this show’s mandate. Here, it seems to involve a relentless simplification of the harmonic structures and serpentine melodies that endeared their creator to jazz performers such as Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock; in almost every case, Cohen and Kuman have dispensed with Mitchell’s original music in favour of sturdier but also far less interesting forms.

That’s understandable—and excusable, given that Circle Game is not a tribute to Mitchell, avant-folk composer and eccentric guitar genius. Instead, it’s an exploration of her lyrical themes, especially the Venn-diagram circles of loneliness, independence, and love that she examined so compellingly from 1971’s Blue through 1977’s Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter— a six-album span of perfect records rivalled only, in pop, by the Beatles.

Theatrically, those themes are used most effectively in Circle Game’s first half, which centres around a budding romance between David (David Z. Cohen) and Adriana (Adriana Ravalli). The ramifications of their eventual breakup percolate through the second act, but only vaguely: the action shifts from student digs to the concert stage, more or less, and narrative falls away in favour of what Variety might once have described as boffo showstoppers.

The best of those, undoubtedly, is Scott Perrie’s “For Free/free Man in Paris”. Using a looper to overdub rhythmic guitar parts and stack vocal harmonies, Perrie is, briefly, the kind of folk-rock god Mitchell herself might have once fallen for. Part of this number’s success, though, is that it’s the tune that deviates the least from Mitchell’s original melody. Otherwise, Circle Game’s only artistically audacious interpretation is the reverent chorale that Ravalli, Kimmy Choi, and Sarah Vickruck make of “Little Green”. It helps, of course, that we now know what that formerly mysterious song is about: Mitchell’s out-of-wedlock daughter, whom she gave up for adoption and didn’t see again for 32 years.

All the performers sing well, with David Cohen’s high tenor a particular pleasure. In addition to the usual guitars and pianos, trumpet, violin, ukulele, melodica, and various percussive devices are deployed for effective sonic variation. Carolyn Rapanos’s set is warm and flexible and even witty, especially in the way the standard lamps of Act 1 prefigure the microphone stands of Act 2. Even if Kuman and Andrew Cohen’s “reimagining” of Mitchell’s music is more of a dumbing-down, Circle Game is far from a downer.

> ALEXANDER VARTY

Circle Game

LA MERDA

By Cristian Ceresoli. A presentation of Frida Kahlo Productions, Richard Jordan Productions, and Produzioni Fuorivia in association with Summerhall and Teatro Valle Occupato. Presented by the Cultch. At the Cultch’s Historic Theatre on Wednesday, May 3. Continues until May 13

Think Beckett on steroids. 2

Like some notable works by the great Irish absurdist playwright, Cristian Ceresoli’s script for La Merda is an obsessive, recursive, and ultimately furious stream-of-consciousness text delivered by a solo female performer. But where Beckett emphasizes the chasm between mind and body by, say, burying a woman up to her waist, then her neck, in sand (Happy Days) or letting the audience see nothing more than her mouth in a tight spotlight (Not I), Ceresoli boldly foregrounds the female body, situating it not only as a home for the play’s troubled consciousness, but—in a patriarchal, misogynistic culture—perhaps as the primary source of the trouble.

I did say “boldly”: Silvia Gallerano performs the hourlong play completely naked, clutching a microphone as she perches on a high stool in a crisp square of light. Her unnamed character is an aspiring actress, hoping for her big break on a TV commercial. She’s a tireless source of self-encouragement, even while apologizing for her lack of height and her excess of thighs. The idea of misplaced faith— be it in the perfect body, the lucky break, or people’s basic goodness— thrums like a thematic bass line as the play’s emotions intensify, with each movement building from shy self-effacement to a crescendo of assertion.

Gallerano is a remarkable presence; she’s done La Merda all over the world in Italian and English, but repetition hasn’t robbed her performance of any of its immediacy. Her body is leonine and her vocal performance is virtuosic as she slips in and out of other characters, travelling up and down her impressive register.

But it’s sometimes hard to make out the words, and embedded in Ceresoli’s text there seems to be a larger comment on Italian society that, in its cultural specificity, eluded me. And his protagonist can be too passive in submitting to humiliation; she often feels much more like a concept than a person. So in spite of Gallerano’s very human presence, I experienced most of the play at an emotional remove.

Still, there’s no denying La Merda’s

bravery. In a postshow talkback, Ceresoli noted that the climate of censorship in Italy compelled the creators to translate the show into English (for a run at the Edinburgh Fringe) prior to its Italian premiere in 2012. Its countless international awards and accolades are a fitting reward for that courage.

NAPOLÉON VOYAGE

2> KATHLEEN OLIVER

By Jean-philippe Lehoux. Directed by Philippe Lambert and Jean-philippe Lehoux. A Théâtre Hors Taxes production, presented by Théâtre la Seizième. At Studio 16 on Tuesday, May 2. No remaining performances Napoléon Voyage lets you travel around the world without leaving your seat. Along the way, you get to laugh at and be moved by a dedicated traveller’s misadventures.

That traveller is Jean-philippe Lehoux, who begins the play groggy and shivering in his seat on a plane bound for Cuba. Idly perusing a magazine feature about Napoleon, he inserts his own name into the narrative, eager to relate to the places he visits as something more than just a tourist.

Lehoux traces his love of travel back to a childhood trip to Costa Rica with his family, and throughout the play, he moves around the stage and around the world, telling superbly crafted tales of his journeys. He visits Bosnia-herzegovina in 2003, where his driver speaks just six words in two days: when Lehoux asks the driver what he did after the war ended, he replies, “Sex. With Serbian women. Ate banana.”

Lehoux recounts a disastrous turn as a pastry chef in England, a stint teaching English in Japan, and some serious intestinal trouble in prewar Syria. Actually, intestinal trouble is a running thread in the show, something Lehoux acknowledges, but his descriptions are inventive: he describes feeling his bowels empty “like God was whacking a symbolic bottle of ketchup”.

The lyricism of Lehoux’s writing is complemented by the music of his performing partner, Bertrand Lemoyne, who rounds out the stories with songs, accompanying himself on guitar, ukulele, and even kazoo. Ranging from whimsical (a karaoke “Mr. Roboto”) to wistful, the songs always enhance the emotion of Lehoux’s narrative.

Codirector (with Lehoux) Philippe Lambert keeps the staging simple and uncluttered, foregrounding Lehoux’s engaging presence. The script might benefit from a few cuts, and the story of a youthful friend feels unmoored from the rest of the narrative, but these are minor quibbles in a generally charming show.

You may not be a conqueror of worlds—you may even, like Lehoux, have trouble staying off the toilet when you travel—but you can still enjoy the journey.

> KATHLEEN OLIVER