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EDMONTON - As Spine begins, a group of shadowy performers carry small movie screens onstage.
A body hurtling through space is projected on the canvas they create, while in the background, a cosmos of bright stars blurrs.
It is a spectacular multi-plane scene and it certainly sets the tone for this clever psycho/sci-fi/B-movie morality play, seeing its world premier at the Studio Theatre.
Kevin Kerr's work is a technological wonder requiring some 13 actors and an army of technicians behind the scenes.
Robert Shannon's adaptable Stargate-like metallic set is really an ingenious series of screens and opens to reveal vast vistas beyond the set. Add to this David Rhymer's bizarre world of whirrs, clicks, Star Trek space bleeps, gurgles and splats and you have a complex and wondrous fantasy world.
It takes Spine a while to catch because Kerr keeps throwing bits and pieces of character and plot at the audience, leaving us to pull them all together.
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It constantly asks us to define reality in a world where it becomes more and more difficult to locate the parameters.
An alternate identity or multiple identities are just a mouse click away. A lonely teenager can become a lover. A man can become a woman. In video games, as a grizzled hero, you hunt down and blast away at space monsters.
When does reality itself change and become something else?
The play goes far beyond James Cameron to question the morality of the avatar.
What happens if you feel your avatar turns out to be far more able and interesting than you? Do you abandon your real self?
And what do you owe to the people who invest their own emotions in your projection?
Kerr keeps peeling back the layers, asking the questions and, in some cases, suggesting answers.
Although Kerr's twitchy style tends to work against emotional involvement, there is one really creepy scene reminiscent of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, where a programmed woman jerks, uncontrollably, back and forth, in and out of the several characters she has become.
If all this sounds like slogging through a class in advanced ethics , it's not. It is simply great storytelling. The second act, in particular, is funny and at moments, hilarious.
The whole collective theatre movement is sent up by a rag-tag company of hippie actors. Their out-of-control avatars run into each other, walk into walls, perform obscene acts and generally create havoc.
Any play that features a statuesque Moon Goddess of Ancient Egypt and a zombie attack can't be all serious.
All this technology could easily overwhelm the cast but director Bob Fraser has made sure that each of them hits their marks and registers strongly.
Spine is, perhaps, not for everyone. You have to work to keep up with what is being thrown at you. There is still a bit of fat on the script; it could be pared back. But it is a play for our time and any effort it demands is worth it.