Double Feature: Two To See at PuSh Festival

Production photo from My Arm, tonight at PuSh

Theatre is a peculiar thing if you're not used to it. It seems either high-brow intellectual or like over-acted television. But after last night's stellar performances at the PuSh Festival I once again have respect for the art. As a medium, theatre rates between reading a proper novel and watching a movie, because the action and symbolism run rampant (movies), but you're forced to put to use your imagination, rather than being a passive observer (books).

Full reviews and essential info after the jump...

An Oak Tree (7pm) is played by two actors. It's about a hypnotist who, while reaching for a cigarette in his car, inadvertently mows down a 12-year-old girl wearing headphones. The father of this girl deals with her death by in his own mind converting the oak tree near where she has died into her "being," so that he can visit her whenever. This does not go over well with his wife. So he goes to to see the hypnotist's show, and see if he can help him in any way.

But you don't find any of this out all at the beginning. Much of the show is the way it is presented. The play wears its bones on the outside -- it's based around an old idea by a 1920s psychologist, Emil Coue who advocated "self-mastery through conscious autosuggestion," which basically means that if you say something enough, it will become true (like, hmm, the girl becoming the oak tree). Writer, actor and co-director Tim Crouch also references a favourite art piece on display at the Tate Modern by Michael Craig-Martin, which he named the play after, and which also explores the idea of transmutation and the power of suggestion.

Crouch plays the hypnotist on a minimalist stage, and has an actor who knows nothing about the play to come up and be the second actor (playing the father). Last night it was local actor Maiko Bae Yamamoto, and it will be someone else tonight. Crouch is actually feeding lines to the other actor out loud in front of the audience, or through headphones. It is amazing to watch.The heavy subject-matter of the play was actually tempered by these interruptions and thus held your emotions in check.

My Arm (9pm) starts out light and funny and ends in a very dark place. Tim Crouch plays this one solo, with the assistance of props from the audience and a Ken-doll. The story is based on the idea that "At the age of 10, for want of anything more meaningful to do, I put my arm above my head and kept it there."

Crouch collects objects from the audience, and everyone hands over their inanimate objects hoping they would be made stars of the show. But Crouch did not even use them for their meaning, which was a refreshing surprise. He used a keychain to denote his brother, a black jujube to denote his father... you get the idea. It was deadpan and fun to watch.

He goes heavy on the symbolism on this one, using a sparkler to denote fireworks, and trying to make it poignant by letting it run down to its end in the dark. To be fair, this is a turning point in the film, the night the character decides to raise his arm for the rest of his life, no matter what the consequences.

My Arm was totally brilliant. Crouch's storytelling abilities are second to none -- his troubled character is genial, engaging, rude and wry.

Thursday January 25 through Saturday, January 27th
7pm (An Oak Tree), 9pm (My Arm)

The Scotiabank Dance Centre
677 Davie St (at Granville)

Tickets $26.00/20.00 (Double bill price: $35)
www.ticketstonight.ca 604-231-7535

Photo by Francis Hills (from My Arm)