The Physical Ramifications of A SummerWorks Marathon

After an amazing weekend at Wolfe Island Music Festival I arrived back to Toronto to catch the Summerworks Theatre and Art Festival already well underway.  Summerworks, for those who are not aware is a festival that seeks to promote Canadian theatre culture by giving artists a platform to explore new territory and take artistic risks.  Unfortunately for Summerworks and the 20,000 festival attendees, the federal government decided to cancel their funding, which makes up about 20% of the festival’s budget.  But as they say, the show must go on, and that it did as the festival pushed on with a fundraising drive and adjusted ticket prices to make-up for the funding shortfall.

Although my reason for attending Summerworks was the Music Series, I decided to take the opportunity to take in some Homegrown theatre as well.  My first opportunity was a musical by Samuel Sholdice (of Toronto’s Rival Boys) called Program.  A non-linear, multiple story-lined play about a group of young people trying to find their place in the city while dealing with homelessness, mental illness, employment problems, relationships just to name a few.  Program showcased an ensemble cast of very talented young actors/musicians/singers, with a stand-out performance by Tom Mifflin as ‘News’ the comedic relief of the show.  You can check out some of the songs featured in Program here, footage from a fundraising party.  I left the Lower Ossington Theatre comforted with the knowledge that the future for Canadian musicals seems very bright.

Next on the agenda was The Physical Ramification of Attempted Global Domination, a play produced, directed and written by Aurora Stewart De Pena and Nika Mistruzzi; who together created and run the Birdtown and Swanville Collective.  In Physical Ramifications, we have 8 of the most aggressive world dictators pitted against each other in a game-show type competition to see who was the most powerful; Mao Zedong, Pope Pius XII, Pancho Villa, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Oliver Cromwell, Adolf Hitler, and Napoleon Bonaparte.  Playing these historical figures is an ensemble for very talented female actors, giving the play an interesting juxtaposition as all the characters are male.  The cast is aided by the direction of Aurora Stewart De Pena as the omniscient god-like host and judge, and Wes Allen as The Stage Manager keeping the contestants in line.  The music by Matt King (of Toronto’s DD/MM/YYYY) was spot on in creating a game-show atmosphere, there was also probably the best rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody I’ve ever seen.  The play entertains as well as educates in an unconventional manner with a mixture of actual quotations or “Real Talk” along with hilarious hypothetical situations; pick-up line competitions, dance-offs, and a lot of balloon popping.  We learn about the various neuroses and physical ailments these men developed from the stress of world domination.  Never before have I laughed so hard at subject matter that was so dark; genocide, rape, torture, murder and pretty much every terrible thing humans are capable of.  Each member of the cast had the crowd in stitches at least once during the play, but stand-outs for me were Jessica Salgueiro as Pancho Villa, Mehagan Swaby as Idi Amin and Nika Mistruzzi as Adolf Hitler.  I think Birdtown and Swanville should take the Physical Ramifications on the road to high school and university history classes, it would definitely be more enlightening than reading a textbook.

That was the extent of my foray into the theatre portion of Summerworks, next it was onto the impressive line up of emerging musical acts in the Music Series; and so my Summerworks marathon began.