No. 2
PuSh International Performing Arts Festival
No more performances
Nana Maria, a wily old Fijian matriarch now living in New Zealand, wakes the whole household up at 4:30 a.m. to announce she is about to name her successor. Her own children are bloody useless, she says, so her successor will be one of her six grandchildren ranging in age from five-year-old Moses to one of her adult grandsons or granddaughters. She wants a big, big party for the occasion: a pig roasted on a spit, grog and all the fixings set out on a big table with a white tablecloth in the garden.
This is a terrific platform for a solo artist and Madeleine Sami portrays all nine characters with superb attention to the smallest details: the constantly moving fingers of Nana Maria, the excited twitching of Moses, the super-jock swagger of Saul.
Its a virtuosic performance of Toa Frasers award-winning play that, in spite of my difficulty catching all the Fijian or New Zealand-accented words, paints a vivid picture of Nana Maria and her family. She may be old but shes still able to outsmart them all and get exactly what she wantsincluding, and especially, a big dust-up.
JL
Comparison Is Violence
No more performances
Taylor Mac wasnt particularly bothered by the critic who wrote that he was some sort of Ziggy Stardust/Tiny Tim hybrid. But when all the critics and reviewers followed suit, Mac was justifiably ticked off. This red-wigged, fabulously sequined and fringed drag glam performer is like no one youve ever seen before; comparing him to anyone is to do him a disservice. Comparisons, he claims, suggest youre not as special as you think you are. And hes special. Everyone falls a little bitor a lotin love with Taylor Mac: old, young, men, women, bisexuals (or bisexicles as he calls them), homosexicles, trannies or even fundie cray-crays (fundamentalist crazies). How can anyone with so many edges be, at the same time, so lovable? Hes intelligent, sexy, funny, outrageous and provocative. And he certainly PuShes boundaries: I do my therapy on stage, he says. Why should I pay someone when I can get people to pay me?
Comparison Is Violence is an evening of Tiny Tim songs and David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase. And whilst decrying comparisons, Taylor Mac delivered the best reading of Shakespeares Sonnet 18, Shall I compare thee to a summers day? Ive ever heard. Who wouldnt want to be compared toand come off better thana lovely, temperate day? Shakespeare went to nature for his comparisons not pop culture, here-today-gone-tomorrow celebrities.
For all his razor wit, abrasiveness and raunch, Taylor Mac, nevertheless, turned Performance Works into love soup. It was likeoh, forget it. It was like nothing else.
JL
Almighty Voice and His Wife
No more performances
Act 1 of Daniel David Mosess play, presented by Native Earth Performing Arts, feels like something youve seen before: an unfortunate First Nations man and his wife on the run from the RCMP. Act 2, however, is something completely different. Almighty Voice (Derek Garza) appears in a whiteface vaudeville act with his wife White Girl (PJ Prudat) as the MC. Its wildly surreal and is, apparently, supposed to show us Almighty Voice as a hero. I didnt get that but many in the packed Waterfront Theatre did and laughed mightily. What I did take away was the identity crisis with which First Nations people struggle. Our misconceptions are as chaotic and all over the place as Act 2.
JL
