THEATRE REVIEW: BEST BEFORE
17 Jun'10

'Best Before' past its expiry date

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 3 out of 5

TORONTO – While it is true that theatre holds a mirror up to life, a theatre that is content to serve as a mere imitation of life would be pretty dull fare. As any teenager will tell you, life is often dull and it stands to reason that a reflection of that life would be even less exciting.

That's a point driven home in a strange, quirky little offering from Germany's Rimini Protocol that opened at the Berkeley Street Theatre Wednesday as part of the city-wide Luminato Festival. It's called BEST BEFORE and it seems to be driven by the whole notion that in a computer world filled with alternate realities, the time has come for a theatre of alternate realities as well.

To that end, an entire audience is asked to participate, avatar style, in the fast-paced life of BestLand, a computer-generated alternate reality where one is born, lives, loves and dies in the course of two hours.

Now, before you go rushing off to the Berkeley Street Theatre, it should probably be pointed out that these avatars have more in common with a pincushion or a cat-toy than with those bodacious blue creatures in the latest James Cameron flick -- and rather than flying around on rainbow-hued pterodactyls, the best the BestLand avatars can do is bounce up and down within a largely white world, controlled by a rudimentary game controller in often inexperienced hands.

But boy, can these avatars vote, which is apparently what they were created to do by Protokoll's Stefan Kaegi and Helgard Haug.
In fact, once each member of the audience has been introduced to his or her assigned avatar and given a name, a sex and a chance to work out the limitations to its range of motion, much of BEST BEFORE becomes a rudimentary exercise in participatory democracy.

Should marijuana be legal? Should heroin? Abortion?

Should there be marriage? A standing army? Guns? Taxes?

Should BestLand be a meritocracy or a welfare state?

With four civilians -- Ellen Schultz, a journalist-turned-traffic-flagger; Bob Williams, a retired politician; and Duff Armour and Brady Marks, two rather cynical refugees from the world of computer games -- to act as game masters, all these decisions are made collectively, with no protection whatsoever for the rights of the dissenting minority. Not that such concerns are likely to be of major moment to the vast majority in the house, most of whom on opening night, seemed to be having more than a bit of trouble distinguishing their particular avatar from the herd and ensuring that he or she was voting according to their wishes and not running amok, making babies with the avatar of a complete stranger.

Fortunately both Schultz and Williams prove to be natural performers, spinning out their life experiences with such charm and then linking them to the on-screen proceedings that they become as deeply connected to their audience as the game they are hosting. While Ron Samworth provides live musical accompaniment, Marks serves as a sort of stage manager, and Armour provides commentary.

There are, happily, a few simple life lessons to be learned along the way -- not the least of which is the fact that, even in an alternate reality, decisions have consequences. But in the main, it's a theatrical experience that is built largely upon a gimmick -- and while a few gimmicks can hold one's attention for a full 120 minutes, this doesn't seem to be one of them, for all of its inventiveness.