On a seemingly serene night, Hart House Theatre opened its new season with a new hip-hop offering “of the old Ultra-Violence.” A Clockwork Orange, dubbed by director Robert Ginty as “the first violent Canadian musical,” stands out, despite some shortcomings, as a bold new experiment which may indeed shape the future direction of musical theatre.
To say that this production was flawless from curtain to curtain would certainly be overly generous, but at the same time, to write Clockwork off completely would definitely be a mistake as well. There are several interesting things at work within this unique production.
The concept of taking Anthony Burgess’ 1987 musical adaptation of his classic novella and setting it to an urban groove (to out the focus on its message in a more socially relevant light) is the kind of choice which seems so wonderfully obvious that it is strange to think that no one else has done it yet. It is easy to see that Burgess’ tale of inner-city violence, drugs, incarceration and the inhuman solutions of a Big Government already carries with it the thematic seeds of the foundations of hip-hop and urban culture.
With this in mind, the Hart House production team did a great job of adapting Burgess’ script to achieve a modern urban feel (adding approximately 900 extra f-bombs) while still staying true to the “Nadsat” language (a futuristic slang based on a combination of Russian and English) found in the original.
This intriguing combination gives way for a multitude of diverse talents to cross the stage. There’s narrator ‘Professor D’, who with the help of DJ Spinister rocks the transitions between scenes and helps to verbally set up the next bit of action. Also, while Professor D is on the mic, scene changes happen behind the impressive – and at times truly amazing – break dancing supplied courtesy of The Drunkken Monks. On the visual front, the whole set is adorned with the work of local graffiti artist Duro 3.
The advertisements for this production made no mistake in focusing all of their attention on one aspect of the show, lead actor Bishop. For this career hip-hop artist who before this play had never stepped onto a stage to do anything other than rap, acting proved to be a formidable challenge. In the central role of Alex, Bishop is at his strongest when he is doing what he already does best. Any scene which involves a violent attack, jockeying for power, rapping, or joking and drinking with his “droogs” is smooth and very easy to watch, most likely because he is just “being himself.”
However, other scenes in which Alex interacts with more serious and emotional characters like his estranged mother and father, or representatives from the government, are stiff and awkwardly unconvincing in certain moments. In those few rough moments it appeared that Bishop was holding something back from his performance instead of going all the way and allowing the character of Alex to consume and direct his scripted interactions.
Very likely it could simply have been first-night jitters, and it is certainly daunting to play a weak or emotionally distressed individual, especially when you are making your acting debut as the lead in an 80-minute production. Regardless of those few errors, Bishop rose to the task as best he could and proved that stage presence and raw energy can successfully transcend the genres of hip-hop and musical theatre.
When at his best, Bishop’s energetic and truthfully funny moments had the audience’s undivided attention and made the production worth watching. Whichever way you cut it, one fact remains true of Bishop’s performance: it has way more street cred than P. Diddy’s attempt in A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway did.
Taken as a whole, the production was energetic and extremely original. In fact, one of the more regrettable parts of the evening was in fact the subdued state of the audience. It was obvious that for all the energy that Bishop and the other imported hip-hop talent were putting into the show, they were expecting (and rightly deserved) a more raucous response from the audience.
