THEATRE REVIEW: ALI & ALI: THE DEPORTATION HEARINGS
1 Oct'10

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Watching ALI & ALI: THE DEPORTATION HEARINGS unfold, it is clear that co-creators Camyar Chai, Guillermo Verdecchia and Marcus Youssef have a lot to say on topics ranging from theatre to Canadian anti-terrorist policy. Watching ALI & ALI: THE DEPORTATION HEARINGS go off the rails, however, makes it clear that perhaps this inventive trio might have been well advised not to try to put everything they had to say into one show.

A sequel of sorts to the collective's earlier offering ALI & ALI: THE AXIS OF EVIL, THE DEPORTATION HEARINGS opened Thursday in the Factory Studio, a New World Theatre production presented by Cahoots Theatre Company in association with Factory. It begins with the title characters -- a pair of refugees from a totally fictitious country plagued by many of the same problems, dare we say it, as the Israelis and the Palestinians -- in rehearsal for their latest stage show, a gratingly ingratiating work titled Yo Mama, Osbama, or some sort of similar ethnic malaprop.

Just what the purpose of it all is unclear, save that it gives our two leading men (played by Verdecchia and Youssef) a chance to send up a whole range of ethnic stereotypes with a glee that is happily unrestrained and, less happily, pretty unfocused as well. Then, just as they get rolling, things are suddenly brought to a crashing halt when the long arm of the law intervenes and stops things cold. Actually, that arm is quite shapely too, belonging as it does to the lovely Anita Majumdar, cast as a Taser-toting officer from a new and improved RCMP who is investigating our titular heroes for all their questionable activities. That includes donations made to a totally fictitious organization that raises many of the same kind of red flags as, dare we say it, Hezbollah.

This being the new RCMP, of course, this officer's powers go well beyond mere investigation, and soon, Ali & Ali find themselves in the midst of an immigration hearing, with only Hong Kong, their malaprop-riately named Mongolian assistant, played by an often very funny Paul Sun-Hyung Lee.

Unfocused though it may be, there's material here for a half-hour of really good comedic sketches, which would be good news for a sketch comedy troupe, but not so great for what is supposed to be 80 minutes of political and social satire. Like heart surgeons attempting to perform a valve replacement with a steam shovel, Chai, Verdecchia and Youssef create so much satiric collateral damage that it's difficult to see if their barbs have actually found a mark.

And sadly, they get scant help from their director (Verdecchia again, assisted by Soheil Parsa) who fails to realize that, with a show like this, a major part of the directorial function is merely editing and the rest involves honing both humour and social commentary to a razor's edge, not turning it all into cudgels with which to hit an audience over the head.

Which is not to say that nobody has a good time here, for on opening night, there were times when the cast was so clearly amused, one wondered if they would be able to continue. Unless they are paying their audience to watch, however, it seemed to this observer that the wrong end of the theatre was laughing themselves silly. If they narrowed their focus a bit, more of those laughs just might be coming from their audience.