Finding some common ground in cultural quake

Yes, it’s crazy to blame bad manners for a natural disaster.

Taking off your clothes on a mountain in Borneo couldn’t possibly cause an earthquake. Or could it?

Directed by Andrew Johnston, a new play at Live Five by Rod Macpherson, Naked Tourist Sacred Mountain, looks at this issue from every conceivable point of view.

Two free-spirited millennial tourists find themselves trapped in Malaysia when they’re blamed for a deadly quake. Canadian Natalie (Anna Mazurik) and Aussie Owen (Nathan Coppens) argue about what to do.

They argue at the start of the play, they argue in the middle of the play and they argue at the end of the play. It’s necessary, one supposes, to show the pressure they’re under and to draw differences between their characters, but it’s also wearying.

Maybe that’s because you don’t side with them. They did something stupid, they should get what they deserve. Owen is particularly unlikeable, a narcissistic product of the online age who derives his self-worth from likes on his blog, Man on Top.

“People dislike us because we’re young and free,” he whines, to laughs. True, perhaps. But you’re also arrogant and disrespectful, Owen.

Full marks to Coppens for convincing you of his character’s lack of character.

Mazurik’s effective portrayal of Natalie makes you like her a bit more because at least she has a conscience and is leaning toward making amends.

Surprisingly, the play’s most engaging character is the Malaysian tourism official Massood, charmingly played by Earl Pereira. He vexes you with cryptic sayings like “beware the unseen tiger.”

But maybe Massood should be more threatening. At least that would help us feel the tension that Natalie and Owen are trying to fill the room with.

The play is short, around 80 minutes, but has time for a quirky dream sequence that cleverly exposes Natalie’s subconscious. It’s baseball-themed, with shades of Field of Dreams, and involves puppets and amazingly well-timed sound effects of balls hitting gloves.

Also unusual is that the play un-cynically shows Natalie praying the Hail Mary. Naked Tourist Sacred Mountain isn’t as compelling as you might hope but it’s unique in pushing us toward a greater sensitivity of cultural and religious differences and encouraging us to overcome our Western, secular, superiority complex.