Burger King Lear on menu at Fresh Meat festival
Did William Shakespeare order his burgers with or without onions? Kate Smith may not have the answer to that burning question, but the Ottawa playwright-actor has found a connection between Shakespeare and fast food in Burger King Lear, one of 10 new shows at the upcoming fifth annual Fresh Meat: DIY Theatre Fest.
Not one to get mired in convention, Smith uses fast food and its packaging to tell the tragic tale of the foolish fond old man who divvies up his kingdom like a supersized order of fries between two untrustworthy daughters. Burgers become, in effect, puppets in this ultra-condensed 20-minute version of Shakespeare’s towering tragedy (all Fresh Meat shows are that length, so you can see several of them in one evening).
Using fast food is “a bit outthere,” says Smith, but “levity is necessary for us to be able to digest the tragedy. That’s why we tell jokes at funerals.”
Smith’s show also ties the centuries-old story of Lear to the contemporary issue of fast food’s effect on the environment, including the impact of all those beef cattle — the land they use, the water they consume, the greenhouse gases they expel — that wind up as hamburgers.
“That toll on human health and the environment is a huge tragedy, but no one wants to hear that,” says Smith.
By offering a venue for short, pushing-the-boundaries shows like Smith’s, the festival has secured a tidy niche in Ottawa’s crowded independent theatre scene.
The event has grown from six companies and a total audience of around 100 back in 2012, to 10 companies playing to an anticipated 300-plus people this year. It’s also expanded from the original three nights, to six nights spread over two weekends.
The festival of local artists has grown “more than we ever thought it would,” says director Emily Carvell.
Conceived during what she calls a “beer tent moment” at a long-ago Ottawa Fringe Festival, Fresh Meat gives artists the chance to try out ideas in a safe, accepting space, Carvell says.
That testing is crucial to how, and if, an idea will be pushed into a larger production. Festival organizers point proudly to how some shows that debuted there went on to bigger things: THUNK!Theatre’s Far & Near & Here, for instance, later played the Undercurrents festival, while Tess McManus’s Tales She Tells, from the festival’s first iteration, has been performed at the National Arts Centre’s Fourth Stage and across Canada.
The festival is also an opportunity for audiences to experiment, even if the shows aren’t always zingers.
“It’s extending your palate without going too far out of your comfort zone,” says Carvell. “It’s a chance to see what’s new and what’s happening in theatre, to (later) say, ‘I saw it when it was just a baby.’”
The babies this year include works by established artists like Smith and Will Somers (the latter is performing Pierre Brault, a response to Brault’s recent solo show Will Somers: Keeping Your Head, about Henry VIII’s famous court jester). There are also emerging acts like Second Step (S.S. Lightbulb).
Greg Houston is a bit of both. A veteran standup comedian, he’s making his theatre debut with Space Jameration. Houston, knowing the value of playing things close to his chest, won’t say much about the show other than that the name was created during a house party to describe a generation between Gen Xers and Millennials, “a subset that may include every single human in the world.”
He says he’s venturing into theatre because its audiences are more willing “to hear strange narratives than comedy club audiences. There’s a range of experimentation not available in club comedy.”