Queer Neverland

>> Divinity Bash is a street-smart fairy tale

by AMY BARRATT

Prior to the opening of Divinity Bash/ nine lives, I asked playwright Bryden MacDonald how he felt about the “gay writer” label.

“If you’re going to say that I write gay plays,” he said, “please call even the ones with straight characters gay plays. It’s not about subject matter, it’s about sensibility.” Then, with a twinkle, he added: “Although, this play is pretty queer.”

Divinity Bash/ nine lives is queer, in subject matter and sensibility. What you start out thinking is going to be a gritty portrait of street life turns into—excuse the expression—a fairy tale.

MacDonald has said that this play was his attempt to write something entirely character-driven, and certainly there is character to burn here: from Liam, who believes he’s been abducted by aliens, to Glorious, a “hermaphrodite” hooker. Despite similar raw material, MacDonald’s characters owe less to Judith Thompson and George F. Walker than to The Wiz, Peter Pan, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

This Imago Theatre production, directed by the playwright himself in the black-box space at the Monument-National, has the audience looking down on the stage and separated from the performers by metal barricades. The set, by Ana Cappelluto, where kitchen-appliance-sized bricks jump out of walls and roll about the stage, gives muscle and energy to the production.

Some performances are more riveting than others. Diana Fajrajsl is astounding as grieving dominatrix Alice/Anastasia, who “may have gone a little farther into madness than I had planned.” Michael Daniel Murphy and Sarah Carlsen are entirely loveable. Omari Newton needs to get out of this rut of playing wide-eyed innocents. As latter-day witch-prophetess Evangeline, Bronwen Mantel has been allowed to deliver every line in the same dreamy tone, causing the ear to shut off during her long speeches.
But for the most part, it works.

NY confidential

Tightrope Theatre was founded by acting coach Jacqueline McClintock, largely as a showcase for her students. McClintock studied at New York’s Neighbourhood Playhouse under the late Sanford Meisner and is now spreading the Meisner gospel here in her hometown.

Two years ago Tightrope presented two one-acts by Edward Allan Baker, under the title of Women on the Verge. While those plays called for all female actors, their latest offering, Glengarry Glen Ross, is, of course, a total guy thing.
McClintock, who directs this production, has handpicked a cast that is not just solid, it’s really interesting. Local stage, film and TV actors mingle with stand-up comics and one radio DJ as the desperate salesmen in David Mamet’s hilarious and harrowing group portrait.

Tightrope calls itself “An Actor’s Company” and it is, almost to the exclusion of the other elements that make theatre. McClintock hasn’t really made the leap from coach to director. Watching Glengarry is like sitting in on a scene study class: everybody’s listening and communicating and drawing full characters, but there’s no vision there to frame the acting. :

Divinity Bash/ nine lives, through May 26 at Théâtre duMaurier, Monument-National,
$15–18, 871-2224
Glengarry Glen Ross through May 26 at
Player’s Theatre, $12–15, 593-0242