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....)

Valkyrie: A review

Ok so last night i had the distinct pleasure of getting to see a movie well before its release date. Thanks to Alex Kitz, who through his contacts in the biz, scored two sneak preview tickets to Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise. However he couldn't attend due to a previous engagement, so he forwarded the tickets on to myself, and having no significant other to speak of, i invited the man known only as "The Comfort" to be my date.

So we showed up good and early cause apparently they give out more tickets than their are seats to ensure a full house. Mumf rocked a popcorn drink combo, while i chose a more conservative route and went with Glosette Peanuts and a medium Fruitopia strawberry passion awareness. The theatre filled up, 7p.m. hit, and so began Valkyrie.

Now i won't get too in deep in terms of plot or any of that noise. Because i don't want to ruin the movie for anyone. I'll just give a quick little summary of what the movie's about and what i thought of it. For those who don't know, Valyrie refers to "Operation Valkyrie", which was the name of a plan the Germans had in place for the activation of their reserve army in the case of an emergency. Essentially the basic plot, which doesn't ruin anything by the way, revolves around a group of high ranking officials in Germany's army. Many of which are very close to Hitler himself. Their plan is to assassinate Hitler and end all the atrocities being committed against mankind. Basically kill Hitler, seize power, and arrange a truce for the end of the war. Tom Cruise's character, Colonel Schottenhammel or something like that, amazingly i already forget his name. There's a lesson for you kids, don't do drugs. Anyways he is one of the leaders of this plot and it is his responsibility to pull off the assassination. I won't go any further than that.

Overall i'd give the movie an A-. I'm not sure why i don't give it an A. Because you know what, it was damn good. I enjoyed that the Director Brian Singer didn't try and make an overblown action movie out of the story. He didn't fill it full of explosions and gore or shock footage. The story was centred around the plan and strategy of pulling this insane operation off. It always helps when you know something is based on actual events aswell because you can sit there and be amazed that yes, in one form or another, this actually did happen! The acting is really good, and i kind of enjoyed the first scene of the movie, where at first they have everyone speaking in German and subtitles below, and then it morphs into English. Basically it's a weird little trick that says, "yes they are speaking German, but you're going to hear it in English". One thing that seemed a little overdone, was that any time any person was doing something, there would be like silence from everyone else and ominous music playing that suggested everyone knew what was up. Suspicious glances everywhere. Made me feel like if Tom Cruise was taking a pee, he and a guy in the next urinal would be eyeing each other up and down suspiciously wondering if the other one was going to crack him in the face with his dong. But i suppose towards the end of World War II, that was probably everyone's general mood for the most part, suspicious of everyone and everything, so it makes sense.

To finish up, go see Valkyrie, it's worth it for sure, it's not a movie you wait to see on TMN, cause it's a fine film, just don't take Mumford, he doesn't hold hands and refuses to pay for your snacks.