THEATRE REVIEW: I THINK I CAN
8 APR/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

If you missed it in its first incarnation, back in 2007, the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre For Young People is currently offering a second chance to catch up with the captivating cacophony that is I THINK I CAN, a delightful and thought-provoking theatrical collaboration between playwright Florence Gibson and dancer choreographer Shawn Byfield.

Now, right off the top, you may be scratching your head at the notion that it takes a playwright to write a play in which the main language is the language of dance — specifically tap dance, for the record — rather than the spoken word. But, as anyone who has followed Gibson’s career since her impressive debut offering BELLE can tell you, she is often at her best when she’s creating new language simply by bending old into such strange shapes that we hear it in a whole new way. As for I THINK I CAN, it is set in and around a school, which is hardly surprising, one supposes, when one considers that it is aimed squarely at the heads and hearts of audiences aged eight and up.

But this is a school with a difference. For while the students seem to communicate well between themselves and even with their teacher (Melody Johnson, channelling Olive McOyl in the play’s only speaking part), they communicate largely through the medium of tap. Other than that, they’re a pretty normal group of kids — a jock or two, a couple of keeners and a few girly-girls, one of them goth. And then there is affable young Tip (played by Tosh Sutherland), a lovely, loveable and apparently loving kid who walks with an obvious limp — a fact that bothers his classmates not one whit, as they tap their way through life.

But to the surly Biow (David Cox), Tip represents easy prey, and though Tip’s bullying at the hands of the stronger boy clearly rankles them all, Tip and the rest of the gang handle it all with the easy dismissive grace children so often exhibit. But one day, Biow goes too far and Tip fights back, only to be called on the carpet by the teacher who, informed as she is by her own late arrival on the scene and Biow’s acting skill, judges Tip to be the aggressor. Chastised, Tip vows to give his tormentor wide birth, but when Biow turns his attention to young Frufie, a classmate with whom Tip enjoys a special bond, Tip seems to have no choice.

While all this unfolds, excitement is building for the school-wide science fair — a contest which offers up the ne plus ultra in electronic gadgetry as prize — and while Biow seems to have it all sewn up, fate intervenes, offering his classmates (Kyle Brown, Matthew G. Brown, Jamie McRoberts, Tammy Nera and Jennifer Stewart complete the cast) a chance to shine. But kids will be kids — and they appear to blow their chances, redeeming themselves only by learning to work together.

Crisply, even energetically, directed by Conrad Alexandrowicz on an economical but highly serviceable set created by Julia Tribe and enlivened by the video projections of Jacob Niedzwiecki, I THINK I CAN tackles a lot of issues that figure prominently amongst the younger set — everything from bullying and cheating to peer pressure and even the first blossoming of nascent romance. But it does it all with such charm that one suspects its target audience will swallow it all without hesitation, without ever having to be told that this is art and art is good for them.

And that’s not only the best kind of theatre for young audiences, but it should be the only kind.