THEATRE REVIEW:
TEAR THE CURTAIN!

JOHN COULBOURN,
Special to TorSun
10 OCT 2012
R: 4/5

Pictured: Laura Mennell

TORONTO - They exist, side by side and, most often, unobtrusively, in all quality stagework — the often antithetical notions that theatre is mere entertainment and that it is, in fact, something far deeper. But in TEAR THE CURTAIN!, a stylish new work from Vancouver’s Electric Company (of Studies In Motion fame), produced in association with the Arts Club Theatre Company and presented by Canadian Stage, those duelling elements are front and centre, fighting for control of the stage in a noir-ish nightmare that also pits live performance against film, blending them in such a rich pastiche that it is often hard to remember which is which, or even that they are two separate components in the theatrical experience. TEAR THE CURTAIN! opened a limited run Tuesday at the Bluma Appel Theatre.

Written by Kevin Kerr and Jonathon Young — who also juggles co-directing duties with creator Kim Collier, while starring in the role of troubled theatre critic Alex Braithwaite — it is set in a fictitious Vancouver of the 1930s, a city where two separate gun-toting gangs battle for control of the city’s theatres. One favours the world of the status quo, where live performance is king, while the other favours new-fangled motion pictures, like the soon-to-be-released talky, The Swan, starring Lillian Gish.

In the midst of this gang warfare, Young’s perfectly drawn Braithwaite is seduced by the sultry charms of Mila Brook (a Harlow-esque Laura Mennell) and becomes the tool of the anachronistically named Empty Space gang and their even darker secret vision for capturing the imagination of a nation. As Braithwaite’s life spins out of control and he struggles to sort dreams from reality, he discovers that only the love of a good woman — in this case, that would be Mavis, the long-suffering newsroom secretary played by Dawn Petten — can redeem him.

In Collier’s hands, the action switches almost seamlessly from film to live performance and back again as Young and Kerr’s convoluted plot unfolds/unravels over the course of close to three hours — an often riveting hybrid that blends elements of homage and send-up in much the same way as it blends live action and film. But, while Collier’s creativity proves impressive, it is finally insufficient to a storyline that keeps wandering off in search of even more ways to demonstrate the cleverness of its creators. As things becomes more and more cuckoo and less and less Cocteau, TEAR THE CURTAIN!’s audience becomes ever more caught up in the ‘how’ of it all, instead of the ‘why.’

Its message — that theatre remains a highly personal, versatile and immediate art form — seems to get lost in the creative glitz. Despite the high level of its artistry, it loses all sense of urgency and with it, any sense that there is a meaningful battle going on here.