Rogues Theatre exposes underbelly of greed in A Beautiful New City
George F. Walker’s A Beautiful New City is political satire disguised as an urban fairy tale, complete with duelling witches.
Written in 1987 as A Beautiful City, Walker took it out of mothballs last year, dusted it off and updated it.
Rogues Theatre then took it on, and under the direction of Joe-Norman Shaw, is giving us what could be the Canadian première of the new version. It definitely is the western Canadian première, and it runs in the Pumphouse’s Joyce Doolittle Theatre until May 12.
Walker’s thesis in the play is that greed is like a cancer — as contagious as it is crippling.
Paul (Jerod Blake) is an architect who has been working for Tony (AJ Anwar), a corrupt developer, and his mob boss/ dark witch mother Dian (Tiffany Lynn Cuffley).
Paul’s moral dilemma gives him ulcers, which land him in hospital and into the care of Jane (Sage Kitchen), whose mother Gina Mae (Stacie Harrison) is a white witch.
Gina Mae’s brother-in-law Rolly (Chris Georgeadis) and Rolly’s drug-addled son Stevie (Samuel G. Hoeksema) are double-crossing Dian, which puts their lives in mortal danger.
Brad Leavitt’s set, lighting and props design give this A Beautiful New City a slick, efficient feel, while Shaw’s direction mines a great deal of Walker’s sardonic humour. Because Walker has written caricatures rather than characters, the actors have to walk a tightrope that strands them between cartoons and real people.
Quentin Tarantino does this, as do directors of most films based on graphic novels, and not every actor is as successful with the tricky demands.
Tony’s obsession with building an underwater mall is a great running joke and the more crazed Anwar makes him, the more fun he and the audience have.
Hoeksema holds nothing back, making Stevie seem as if he’s stepped out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon — especially when Gina Mae threatens to turn him into acrow.
Cuffley makes Dian more overtly dangerous, but Harrison shows that beneath Gina Mae’s caring, philanthropic nature dwells an ominous power.
Paul is the only character with an arc in the play, as he undergoes Gina Mae’s healing powers, which means Blake is the only actor to have moments grounded in reality. It’s a carefully calculated performance from moments of bizarre excess to flashes of genuine emotion and conflict.
Walker’s plays may no longer seem groundbreaking and shocking, but they still make for an entertaining evening of theatre when handled with this degree of care and insight.