The annual U of T Drama Festival staged original student-written plays over three nights at Hart House Theatre. The festival was adjudicated by playwright and acting instructor Ron Cameron-Lewis, and awards were handed out at the closing ceremony on Saturday evening. Theatre critics from The Varsity took in the entire festival, and here’s their verdict.
Crosses (UTSC Drama Society)
Rating: VV
A girlfriend and boyfriend spend twenty minutes mustering the courage to open an envelope containing the results of his HIV test. Unfortunately, writer/director Jon Mandroso’s dialogue and staging, striving to be naturalistic, is painfully monotonous, and the actors seem to be trying to avoid disturbing the deadly seriousness of the situation rather than exploring it. Any interesting moments between the couple are deflated by the interruptions of a ghostly ex-boyfriend narrator, who floats unobserved around their living room, lamenting his role in bringing them to grief like a junkie Scrooge.
—JH
Whodunnit? (SMC Drama Society)
Rating: V
This parody of a parody goes half-assed on the one element that might have made it enjoyable—camp. Writer/director Andrew Pignataro borrows every convention possible from Clue, with characters like Professor Peach and a suitcase containing candlestick, rope, and their usual companions. If that’s too unpredictable for you, the killer’s identity is revealed minutes after he strikes. Since Whodunnit? painstakingly avoids originality and suspense, the production may as well have committed to cheesiness, but most of the performances are too bland to do anything but let the script speak for itself.
—JH
To the Audience With Sincerity (Victoria College Drama Society)
Rating: VVVv
This play contrasts its protagonist’s ability to communicate with an audience with his inability to connect to “real” people. Peering overtop his dorm room desk directly into the pit, the shaggy-bearded Allen speaks with the superfluity of big words and lack of common sense which tradition demands of philosophy students. However, it becomes apparent in the following scenes with his roommate and girlfriends that his search for clarity is undermined by a nagging belief that life ought to be too complicated for anyone to understand. An inviting set and lots of affably crude humor help bring Allen’s story down to earth.
—JH
The Man With the Leek in His Cap (UTM Drama Club)
Rating: VVVv
This delightful piece of strange Canadiana was extremely pleasant to watch. Beginning around a campfire, a narrator tells the story of Captain Daffyd ap Griffith, feared pirate of the Canadian seas, whose most astonishing accomplishment was stealing all the wheat in Saskatchewan without ever coming ashore from his boat. Filled with great characterizations, amazing feats of physical prowess during the well-choreographed fight scenes, and a surprise appearance by Pierre Trudeau himself, the show makes the viewer want to make love in a canoe. While problems with comic timing hampered the play, on the whole it was a timely and well-performed piece of original theatre.
—MM
Smart Food (UTM Drama Club)
Rating: VVV
This existential drama, a two-hander excellently executed by Brandon Gillespie and Hannah Drew, with help from a prop skeleton, speaks well to a university crowd. What are we supposed to be doing with our lives? The twenty-something Florence doesn’t know, and neither does his skeletal friend Frasier. Various elements of theatre of the absurd and a Beckettian twist were enjoyable to watch, and the actors’ vocalizations were impressive. It takes a lot to command the stage with nothing but a skeleton to rely on, but they gave it an admirable go. The physical gags and over-the-top acting took a toll on the viewer, but the performances were strong and the characters well-defined. —MM
The People v. Congressman Michael Campbell (SMC Drama Society)
Rating: VVV
Everyone loves some anti-Americanism now and again, and this show has it in droves. When Congressman Campbell (R.J. Hatanaka) is accused of murdering one of his aides, a corporate-sponsored show trial ensues. Writer/director Nicholas Hume presents a mockery of justice that’s funny in a sketch comedy sort of way, but drags on too long at times. Hatanaka was wonderful as the gun-loving all-American politician, and the accusations made to the prosecution of being both homosexual and of hating America were all too real. Some inconsistencies marred the script—referring to the Congressman as ‘Senator,’ the inexplicable British accent of the presiding judge, and the Southern accent on William Howard Taft (he was from Ohio). Had the script been tighter, it would have been much funnier, but it certainly had its funny moments despite.
—MM
