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April 27, 2007
Not much bang here
The Only Animal's latest relies on tired humor.
BAILA LAZARUS
Who hasn't been transformed by travel to a foreign locale? Head
off on your own to some country with a completely different culture,
where you can't speak the language, and you're bound to have an
adventure to remember. And along the way, the traveller transforms
the locals.
So it is in Bangs & Buddha, the latest production created
by the Only Animal, a company founded by Eric Rhys Miller (of dog
eat dog fame) and wife Kendra Fanconi (known from her performance
in The One That Got Away at the Chutzpah! Festival five years
ago).
If the title of the play isn't intriguing enough to give it a chance,
just stay for the first five minutes, in which Hillary (played by
Miller), a Vancouver drag queen, struts on stage wearing skin-tone
women's underwear, high heels and tassled pasties twirling in all
the appropriate places.
We catch Hillary as he is packing up, reminiscing about all the
different fashions he's displayed over time. Since he came to Vancouver
from Cold Lake, Alta., he has spent the '70s, '80s and '90s drag
queening in night clubs around town. As he sings in one song, reminiscent
of Monty Python's "I'm a Lumberjack," he's "proud
to be an oil rigger's daughter."
In contrast with his outlandish fashion drama show, recreating the
styles of previous decades, we are introduced to Akiko (Donna Soares),
a Tokyo university student, as she prepares for high school exams,
dressed in a dull student's uniform.
When she finally graduates into the freedom of university, Akiko
begins to gradually explore her interests and runs into Hillary,
who has decided to travel to Japan. She lets him stay with her in
her cramped university dormitory, and his liberated expression of
his sexuality wears off on her. Soon she is sharing the limelight
with the other posers in the Hakajuru district, where the bizarre
and eccentric draw gawking tourists. Hillary, on the other hand,
discovers a local monastery, shaves his head and chants his way
into his own version of an alternative lifestyle.
If the story line sounds so bizarre that it's got to have some humor
to it, it does. Unfortunately, it's not all that great. The one-liners
that Hillary spouts sound like something that would be followed
by a laugh-track on Will and Grace:
"I'm not a superhero, but I know the power of tights,"
Hillary declares as s/he's discussing wardrobe. And when Akiko brings
him to the temple and asks, "Do you want to make an offering?"
he replies, "Oh, Honey, I'm always offering." (kyuk! kyuk!)
We follow the unlikely pair as they traipse around the entertainment
districts in Tokyo. We listen to some really bad (and rather boring)
karaoke, we watch them dress weirdly and, generally, it's like watching
people act out a teenage girl's life. To be honest, it's really
not that interesting.
In fact, there wasn't really much that held my interest after the
first few moments of this production, which had the annoying feel
of a very amateur play; almost at a high school level. Characters
were simplistic; and jumping back and forth between all the little
vignettes felt very choppy. Humor was relegated to bad jokes or
even worse, slapstick, not to mention bad wigs and painful singing.
There seemed to be no reason for the relationship to even exist
between these two rather shallow characters, and several times it
was hard to figure out the rationale guiding their actions.
In the end, the two protagonists head back to their respective homes
(Hillary to Cold Lake after 22 years, and Akiko back to Tokyo) and,
gladly, the audience members head to theirs, finally discovering
their own freedom after 90 minutes without an intermission.
Bangs & Buddha's music director is Wendy Bross Stuart.
The show runs at Presentation House Theatre in North Vancouver until
May 5. Call 604-990-3474 for tickets.
Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, photographer and
illustrator living in Vancouver. Her work can be seen at www.orchiddesigns.net.
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