The Life Game
At Studio 1398, next performance Jan. 29
Tickets: 604-684-6787
What a fascinating evening at the theatre. British-born Keith Johnstone, formerly a director at Londons Royal Court Theatre and drama teacher at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the late 50s, moved to Calgary and started teaching at the University of Calgary. There he created TheatreSports, the well-known staple of improvisational comedy.
One of Johnstones spin-offs from TheatreSports is The Life Game, improvisational theatre for adults who have outgrown TheatreSports. Heres how it works: an individual is chosen, a group of improv actors gathered out of which an interviewer is selected and an audience assembled. Thus far, Truth Be Told Theatre has chosen a Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»notable to be interviewed. But it could beand the company would welcomeanyone.
Sensitivity and respect are the rule as the questions roll out, beginning in childhood and ending up graveside. After establishing the detailsWho was your father? Did you have siblings What did your bedroom look likethe questions become more intimate, probing: Who bullied you? Whom did you bully? First kiss. Most significant break-up. Regrets. Accomplishments. And, finally, How would you like to die?
Throughout the interview and at the directors request, performers re-enact certain pivotal scenes while the interviewee looks on. A horn and a bell are at his/her disposal to let the actors know theyre on the right track or not.
Last Sunday night, Jerry Wasserman, professor, actor and fellow theatre critic, was on the hot seator, in this case, on a leather chesterfield with interviewer-of-the-evening, affable Jeff Gladstone. Now, heres the fascinating thing: while Wasserman was spilling some very interesting beans (hes married to Sue, the most beautiful, smartest woman in the world), everyone in the audience was asking himself/herself the same questions Gladstone posed to Wasserman. Not only are you examining your own responses, youre questioning why you remember certain events and have forgotten others. There isnt one story being told here; there are a hundred stories going on in the dark, in the risers. Who bullied me? Whom did I hurt? What do I most regret? How would I change my life? All The Really Big Questions in our own life game are going down simultaneously.
Ultimately, the discovery at the end of the evening is this: were all in the same boat, we just paddle it differently.
Wasserman was an excellent subject: candid, thoughtful, funny and fearless. There were times when the performers were re-enacting an awkward family dinner table scene or the painful end of a relationship, when we couldnt tear our eyes off Wasserman to see what the effect was on him. Veena Sood, who co-directed with Lori Triolo this particular evenings performance, said thats when she knows its really workingwhen the audiences gaze shifts back and forth. Wasserman, under Gladstones friendly guidance, even delivered his own eulogy from the perspective of his own brother Glen who summarized, He was a good guy.
Almost all of the Truth Be Told Company were on deck: David Milchard as Jerry, Tallulah Winkelman as Jerrys mother (who told him at age s17 he was special thereby throwing him into existential hell), Ryan Gladstone as Jerrys taciturn father, Thomas Jones and Brian Anderson as Jerrys quarreling brothers and Denise Jones as the heartbreaker or heartbroken girlfriends in Jerrys past.
Because of the intimate nature of The Life Game, a palpable collegiality between directors, performers, amazingly on-the-ball light and sound technicians and the audience develops during the show. Theres food, a bar and at intermission and after the show (when the food rolls out again) everyone mingles and exchanges stories like one big family.
Next up on Jan. 29 is Terry OShea, a gay ordained minister. I wouldnt miss it.
