Wednesday, December 9, 2009

An Inaugural Show For My Inaugural Blog (revised)

Pandemic Theatre Company showcases its first production, Guantanamo Hotels and Resorts at the Bread and Circus Theatre until November 29. The company is a group of young – either still in, or fresh out of school – individuals who want to address global issues on a humane level and to fight political complacency in its audience members. Tickets can be bought here. The audience is also encouraged to engage in some of the research that the company did by reading some helpful links on their website.

I worked with director Parasram on one of his last shows entitled The Adventures of Ali and Ali and the Axes of Evil: a divertimento for warloards as a production assistant. The production starred Matt Cohen, Michael MacKinnon and Sonia Lindner who are the stage manager and actors in Guantanamo Hotels and Resorts, respectively. While I was only involved in the rehearsal process at the very beginning and end, I saw that Parasram wanted everyone – including me, who really only did some budgeting towards the end of the show – to be aware and well-researched on subject matter of the show; he even put together a reader of selected articles for the cast and crew. He was also interested in delving into each of the company members’ personal opinions and experiences with the subject matter. Bearing all this in mind, it made sense for me that his first show independent of the University College Drama Program (from where he was able to direct Ali and Ali) was a politically driven, comedic collective creation.

According to an interview with Chris Berube of CIUT Radio, the idea came to the director shortly after Guantanamo closed down. Among the triumph of the prison's closure he wondered what was to become of the prisoners who had no family or, quite literally, no country left. He then conceived the early ideas for a show where the misfit prisoners became a traveling circus show. He imagined that he would primarily write the show, but after it was cast it became a collective piece where the actors created the characters presented. The process resulted in Guantanamo Hotels and Resorts: not a traveling circus show, but the opening night entertainment for a new resort on the former site of the infamous prison. The audience is the first group of guests to stay at the resort.

The resort's opening night show is hosted by fictional Right-Wing pundit and television host Bill Blitzer (Marcel Dragonieri) and a flank of entertainers. The "troupe" includes two ex-American soldiers named Kevin Bradley and Janie Davies (played by Thomas Davis and Kat Letwin, respectively) three displaced prisoners named Mehdia Amin (Sonia Lindner), Vasilli Vladislav (Michael MacKinnon) and Khaled ibn Sharif (Muneer Malik-Noor) and finally, Lupe Perez (Briana Templeton), a Cuban performer who moonlights as a cleaner



While the show is indeed about the very absurdity and injustice that occurred within the walls of Guantanamo Bay, it primarily deals with the humane experiences of these people that come from all aspects of the prison's history; we hear first-hand accounts of prisoners, guards and the outsider. This approach is of course consistent with the company`s mandate of "communicat(ing) a range of global issues told through individual experiences" so in this sense, I feel as though these issues were properly and equally addressed. I felt that the strongest aspect in this show was the acting, and just how well the characters were developed. A testament to this was that the actors hung around during intermission and remained unwaveringly in character.

MacKinnon plays a displaced Russian man who lost his two brothers back home and now finds solace in his stage persona Boris. He made me laugh as per usual with his stage presence and his willingness to do the most ridiculous things like eat a raw potato (to which my mum said, "he deserves a standing ovation just for that") and serenade and make out with a stuffed toy shark. My only critique is that when he breaks down in the second act it did not ignite any sympathy within because it was one of the only moments in the entire production that seemed scripted and out of his element. I felt more for the character and his history when he told the allegorical story of his brothers, which was hilarious on the surface but incredibly sad in reality.

Lindner plays Mehdia, a Pakistani woman in search of her husband who was imprisoned for being a suspected terrorist. She greatly impressed me with the sincerity of her character's demeanour and I greatly appreciate that she did not resort to stereotypes. I am somewhat sensitive to these, as a great deal of my family is from that part of the world. She maintained docility for most of act one, which I actually initially found to be stereotypical, but her character hit a pinnacle when she told Khaled that he was, "nothing". Lindner proves Mehdia as a strong woman in league with the brash, in-your-face American strength of Janie, but her strength comes out only out of necessity.

As I will note in greater detail below, I am generally unfamiliar with the show’s subject matter. The character Janie was based on military personnel Lynndie England, who was one of eleven convicted of torture in the infamous events surrounding Abu Ghraib. Prior to the show and the first publication of this review I did not know details about her, but some basic online research was enough, and this interview in particular was very enlightening. Ironically, Janie was the character that I liked consistently throughout the show. No matter what questionable things she did or said, I was unable to think any less of her. For me at the time, Janie represented the good people that are indeed still alive and well in America; perhaps they are naive on the realities of the world overseas but they hold characteristically North American ideals that are for the good of everyone, and they are ultimately nice people. Upon doing more research, her character becomes more and more multi-faceted for me. In the first edition of this blog entry, my theatre criticism teacher Michelle advised me that the realities of England serve to undercut the positive qualities of Janie’s character, which in turn give light to the concept of “just following orders”. After looking more into Lynndie England, I find it interesting that the greater idea of just following orders under the blindness of love (for the supposed torturous ring-leader Charles Graner) was not brought up explicitly. In the one torture scene that replicates the atrocities of both Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, we see an interesting aspect of Janie where she is reluctant to administer it. In the end we are asked what difference there is between her and a number of officials that were convicted at Nuremberg, for example.

With Janie in mind, I will bring up her military counterpart Kevin. At first I really disliked Davis in this role and for whatever reason I came to the conclusion that he was giving a lacklustre performance compared to anything else I have seen him in. It wasn’t until act two that I realized how uncomfortable the character of Kevin made me and how much I desperately hoped he would not come and talk to me or call me onstage for audience participation; it was then that I realized just how well Davis plays the selfish, creepy, nymphomaniac American, i.e. how he clearly represents the negative aspects of the U.S.

It was clear that Dragonieri knew every aspect of his character quite well. He embraces the cool confidence of real-life pundits like Coulter, Beck and O`Reilly. We see as his distorted views slip out as he loses his grip more and more on the evening's events. His “non-biased”, outsider views slowly deteriorate and are revealed as deeply personal. Finally, all I can say about Templeton in regards to her character Lupe was that she fully embodied her character in both servile mannerisms and a perfect accent. One of the most powerful images in the play was when Lupe squeezed shampoo (as a symbol of male ejaculation) onto Kevin’s face saying, "I don’t need you and your fucking shampoo". This served as something of a "fuck off" statement to the U.S. and its ever-increasing dictatorial nature on what is the right and wrong way for “foreigners” to live.

I have saved Malik-Noor and his character Khaled until the end. Of all the actors in the company, he was certainly the most disappointing. His character is meant to be a passionate and militant Muslim who fails to cease for his cause. There was no real fire in his delivery; from the beginning of the play I was not sympathetic towards his beliefs because the way he would explain them did not inspire any real empathy that went beyond clichés. As Mehdia says, Khaled is indeed nothing. What also struck me were factual errors with Khaled's character. On a number of occasions I heard him utter, "Jesus Christ" which made me wonder why a devout Muslim would use the prophet Isa's (peace be upon him) name in vain. Furthermore, the very concept of using sacred terms as curse words is a Western phenomenon, so why would he succumb to even that aspect of the Western culture that he so greatly dispises. The most obvious error was when he said in the same sentence that he was from Saudi Arabia and that he ate, "a variety of spicy curries", which particularly irked me. Finally, it is obvious that Malik-Noor is a Pakistani through his accent, especially when he pronounces Arabic words. It begs the question as to why the character he develops couldn't have been left as simply a man from Pakistan if he cannot successfully play an Arab. I understand that I'm nit-picking but for a play that stresses research and accuracy I feel as though I and the rest of the audience have a right to. It is a shame that the one character that the play really had to give justice to was insufficiently addressed.



My only other major critique was that the political messages – whether one agrees with them or not – came across as very heavy handed. What I gathered was that the main message concerned those of us living in developed countries in that we take what we have for granted and ultimately, live in decadence and entitlement. I am of the opinion that we as global socio-economic leaders need to seriously address these issues. I don't, however, appreciate how this message is bludgeoned over my head throughout the whole show. The mechanism with which Pandemic conveys their political messages is primarily guilt, which I have never appreciated as a way to educate. If anything, I find it patronizing.

Although Parasram says in his radio interview that in a political piece of work, you must always address both sides of the argument, I don’t feel that this was always rightfully done. With the exception of the character Janie, any ideas contrary to the central message of the play, and ultimately, the political position of the company were only addressed on a stereotypical level by making all three American characters look stupid. The other competing ideal as represented in a character was of course Khaled, but in the end when he is exposed for what he really is, he is still played up to be the martyr. In the same interview mentioned above, Parasram says that the company is made up of a number of people with completely different opinions but I feel as there is a misrepresentation of any centrist or right-wing ideals in Guantanamo.

Parasram says the company does not have a solution to the problems that are present in the world today, which is a good clarifying statement to make. Despite the flaws I may have felt were apparent in Guantanamo Hotels and Resorts, I have a great amount of respect for the company's mandate and I can only hope that they will flourish during this run and their subsequent ones. The company stresses breaking the complacency that is rife among my peer group. I firmly believe in bringing an end to this apathy, and I am not innocent of it either. I have not addressed a lot of the factual points brought up in the play simply because I don't know enough about the subject to make a legitimate case for or against the opinions of Pandemic. Their mandate as well as their stress on research is a noble thing in a theatre company. Whether or not you agree with the views of Pandemic, this play will get you thinking critically about the issues and more specifically, how to better articulate your arguments for or against them.

I have noticed that when I write reviews I will always listen to either one artist/band or a specific genre, so at the end of every blog I want to show you what I'm listening to. Perhaps it will give you a better understanding of the flow that I am writing in. Given that it's currently crunch-time at school, I have been listening to a variety of electronic beats to "keep me going". Tonight I focused on electropop listening to Uffie the most.

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