TORONTO - While theatre is often as much about the voyage as it is the destination, one still has a right to expect that if he's climbed aboard A Streetcar Named Desire, he isn't going to end up on a Trip to Bountiful.
And frankly, while there are some interesting things to see in the double bill that opened last weekend at Buddies In Bad Times, in the final analysis, neither Zona Pellucida nor The Needle Exchange takes you to the place they promised.
The evening opens on the mainstage with Zona Pellucida, an intimate little work that is, quite frankly, far too small even for the space it's trying to fill.
A creation of Montreal's 2boys.tv -- a twosome who impressed with their work during Buddies Arthouse Cabaret earlier this season -- it is an elaborate interweaving of gay iconography, theatrical form and modern technology that aims, it seems, to penetrate the wall that separates male from female
Named for the "translucent, elastic, noncellular layer surrounding the mammaliam ovum," ZP is performed by Stephen Lawson under the direction of Aaron Pollard.
Performed in front of of and eventually under a miniature proscenium, the show combines drag and lipsynching (Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor and Gena Rowlands are just a few of the voices on the emotionally charged soundtrack) with modern theatrical technology, transforming Lawson at one point into a miniature puppet with which the performer himself then interacts, and creating the internal beast from which he seems to be fleeing.
Yet, in the midst of these hi-tech wonders, there are moments of low-tech charm as well, as Lawson scatters his stage with stuffed animals to give himself an audience or hoists arms and legs in front of a projected moving image to create a tortured evocation of flight.
But if one is looking for the kind of insight or biting political commentary that marked 2boys.tv earlier appearances here, ZP is going to be a bit of a disappointment, caught up as they apparently are here in a battle between just what it is they want to say and just how they say it.
On the heels of ZP's hour- longrun, the audience is moved to Tallulah's, where bon vivant bad boy Keith Cole holds court in The Needle Exchange -- a 30-minute cabaret show, a la George Stroumboulopoulos (save for the fact that Cole will apparently take the time to talk to Canadian theatre artists, of course.)
In honour of the occasion, the space has been spiffed up and given more than a splash of retro chic, enhanced by the lighting of Adrien Whan and Katherine Smith.
As for the title, it seems to be a play on the word "needle," used here as a verb, as in "He needled her until she snapped."
But although a be-tuxed Cole (backed by pianist/composer Herman Ender) begins the show on a musically defiant note, on the evening on which this review is based, the closest he came to needling any of his guests was when he scolded musical theatre diva Sharron Matthews for not singing enough "pretty" songs -- and based on her rendition of The Rose, he might have a point.
Cole's lineup, however, is slated to change every night of the run, so there is certainly more than a passing chance that things could tense up on certain evenings.
That said, while there may be those out there prepared to take the incendiary and unpredictable Cole to task for playing it safe here, I'm not one of them.
I just don't want to go there, and besides, my mamma didn't raise no fools.
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