Theatre Review

Title: Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre

Playwright: Larry Tremblay

Translated By: Chantal Bilodeau

Cast: Chris Bullough, Geoffrey Pounsett, Allan Morgan

Venue: Martha Cohen Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects, Enbridge PlayRites Festival

Reviewed By: Tiffany Sostar (Calgary)

Larry Tremblay’s Abraham Lincoln Goes to the Theatre is a complex and layered play, one that is both confusing and intriguing, and well worth the effort it takes to fully engage with the story. It is part of Alberta Theatre Project’s Enbridge PlayRites Festival.

The play begins with the question of why John Wilkes Booth, a young actor, would have shot Abraham Lincoln. Jumping off from this question in a variety of directions, the play continually comes back to the question of why we do the things we do.

The actors play actors playing actors, and they switch between the roles with a speed and frequency that leaves the viewer blinking in their dust. The three actors - Chris Bullough playing an actor dressed like Laurel, Geoffrey Pounsett playing an actor dressed like Hardy, and Allan Morgan playing an actor dressed like the wax figure of Abraham Lincoln - each deserve huge applause for meeting the challenge. Through body language and tone of voice they manage to convey the changing characters smoothly and effectively. It is a very active play at times and very stationary at other times; the physical acting is as vital an element as the script.

The script itself, as one of the audience members noted, is very “meta.” It refers back to itself frequently, and builds on each self-reference with further references back to itself. It’s a very circular script, telling the same story multiple times from different angles. I found it very interesting and cerebral. The playwright pulls in threads of literary theory, and my inner theory geek was thrilled to see references to Jean Baudrillard’s concept of the simulacra and the “desert of the real” (concepts most of us know from The Matrix – the idea that the imitator has become more relevant than the imitated, and that our simulated worlds are more real than the real world).

In his notes on the play, Larry Tremblay writes - “I structure my play around a series of oppositions: good/bad, sado/maso, North/South, truth/lies, small/big, Laurel/Hardy, the imitator/the imitated… I discover the schizophrenia of America: the gulf between the official line (family and religious values) and radical capitalism. I discover, in fact, that America is, above all, a way of seeing the world, and of taking it for yourself.” This sense of disenchantment, of schizophrenia and dystopian division, permeates the play. There is a sense of sadness, and loss, and a sick fascination with death and pain. The play is challenging not only because it is so complex, so meta and so cerebral, but also because it is so distraught, so divided, so schizophrenic.

This is a play that viewers either love or hate. Although it did feel a little self-congratulatory and the constant self-referencing was a little overdone, I enjoyed it and would recommend it.

Written by :

tasostar

 

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