Gritz Weekly Theatre & Pantomime Review - Festen

FESTEN

The Company Theatre

Berkley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley St)

Grimes mentioned below that I had a previous engagement last night. And he wasn't lying. He's no liar.

There's a pretty unanimous consensus around town about Festen: it's intense. Not just a little bit intense. A lot of yelling. A lot of swearing. A lot of taking off of clothes. It's an intense play. And pleasantly it's also a pretty good play. And that's a happy coincidence. There are few things worse than seeing a bad, intense play because you feel like talking about how shitty the play was somehow suggests that you don't care about the intense subject matter investigated. And that goes for movies too. Hated Brokeback Mountain? You must be a homophobe. Hated Crash? You must be a racist. Hated Starship Troopers? You must be a dirty no-good Bug. And that's unfortunate because usually when people hate movies (or plays) about intense subject matter, it's not because they shy away from the subject matter, it's because the movies or plays deal with that subject matter in a dull, blunt, careless way (example: Crash).

Festen certainly careens towards that sometimes. A play about some quite disturbing issues, set against a family celebration of the patriarch's 60th birthday, starts off very strong introducing a full cast of rounded characters (including, and especially, Nicholas Campbell of Da Vinci's Inquest fame). It's a WASP-y affair with much song and drink. That is, until the eldest son played by Philip Riccio (pictured above) begins to pull some of the skeletons out of the family's collective closet.

Obviously I won't go into plot, but I can say that each actor plays their role with exuberance and dedication and it is a pleasure to watch them all explore the corners of their respective alternate-personalities - especially youngest son Michael played by Allan Hawco and the father played by Corner Gas' Eric Peterson. 

However, the play itself feels a bit dated and stereotypical. The judgement of the WASP family is something that goes back as far as WASP-y families have produced writer children and sadly Festen fails to add anything of value to the cannon. While the actors approach each of their characters with the careful attention to detail the subject matter demands, the play leaps from one broad sweeping statement to the next, neither one particularly revelatory. The play left me feeling entertained, but unfulfilled. We have moved past a world of bitter black and white. If Dexter has taught us anything it is that the debate between good and evil is not easily settled in a matter of minutes. And while a full discourse on Good v. Evil may well be a bit beyond the 90 minute run time of Festen, an acknowledgment of the debate would have been much appreciated. Sadly it was absent, and as such, so were the deeper questions and emotions surrounding the plays emotional core.

Festen is playing every night at 7PM till December 13th. Tickets range from $20-$40. Only 40% appropriate to take a date to (especially if it's Mumford. That cocktease....)