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Feeling is believing for the audience members in the play Bears.
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Metis playwright Matthew MacKenzie’s 75-minute black comedy at Citadel’s Maclab Theater draws on such a visceral level that words and images linger long after the lights go out. So much so that the piece assumes an instinctive resonance: the searing stamp of art.
Bears stars Edmonton’s Sheldon Elter as Floyd, an indigenous oil worker and the prime suspect in an act of industrial sabotage. She first appears on stage in a pair of reflective tape edged jumpsuits. But as Floyd immerses himself in the wilderness of Whitemud and Blackmud Streams, fleeing west into the mountains and toward the coast, he is shedding the layers of his clothes and his life. He recalls his early years with his mother (Christine Sokaymoh Frederick) and his deep love for the grizzly bear. At the same time, Floyd undergoes a transformation, shedding fear while connecting with nature.
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First produced in 2015, Bears has its roots in the ongoing controversy over the Trans Mountain Pipeline. However, the play is not another attack on the people of Alberta and Alberta, a popular Canadian blood sport. Rather, it is a meditation on the land and its indigenous protectors.
In Bears, nature is represented not only by T. Erin Gruber’s changing environmental design and Noor Dean Musani’s hypnotic soundscape, but also by the production’s seven dancers and chorus members (Gianna Vacirca, Alida Kendell, Shammy Belmore, Karina Cox, Skye Demas, Zöe Glassman, and Rebecca Sadowski). Directed by Mackenzie and choreographed by Toronto’s Monica Dottor, the play’s dance line is like a strip of celluloid, helping to weave Floyd’s experience with that of the wild country around him on this critical journey.
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One of the hardest parts of the program for me was figuring out where to fix my eyes. If I focused too much on one of the dancers as she became the piercing eyes of a squirrel, or the delicate yarn of a tiger lily, or the rhythmic wave of a prairie wheat field, I risked losing track by Elter.
And you don’t want to lose sight of Elter. It moves between the joy of a five-year-old boy and the growing anger of a man who knows he has been used. Like the grizzly bear, Elter personifies both strength and grace.
If Elter is elementary, the script itself is poetic. Skillful and fast-paced, he mimics the rush of water through a gorge, the thunderous sweep of an avalanche. There are dramatic moments when Floyd contemplates the destruction wrought on nature and family by the pipeline expansion. But there are also light touches. The chorus, speaking as one, serves as a clever punctuation for the tale, often using humor to emphasize the playwright’s points.
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The play, which has traveled with the same cast to theaters from Victoria to Toronto in recent years, has been honored with numerous awards. But despite all the critical acclaim and sold-out houses elsewhere, the Punctuate! The stage production has only been seen once, briefly, in its Edmonton birthplace.
Now is the opportunity for Edmonton audiences to experience the show, which speaks to Alberta’s complex relationship with industry, nature and indigenous peoples. Bears is an opportunity to connect not only with an impressive work of art, but also with ourselves.
Like The Garneau Block, another recent hometown triumph at The Citadel, Bears taunts Edmontons with the occasional dig, including “Yesterday’s City of Champions.” But the play also reveals that we are more than a Northern community fighting for its identity, and much more than the glitz and glitter of Refinery Row.
As the show’s dancers paint each perfect example of nature with their bodies, audiences feel the excited buzz of the ruffled grouse and the magical run of the great-horned mountain sheep. With humor and truth, Bears demands that we look not only outward, but inward as well.
Who are we really? And once we know the answer, what will we do about it?
REVISION
Bears
Where Citadel Theater, 9828101 A Ave.
When October 22-31
Tickets The lower tier is sold out, the remaining tickets are $ 53 through the ticket office or by calling 780-425-1820.
Reference-edmontonjournal.com