Halifax’s 2b Theatre has built an enviable reputation for tight, taut, portable shows that can tour to general audiences worldwide. The musical Old Stock—a great example—was successful enough to score nominations in New York City for several prestigious awards.
The company’s latest project is a dazzling one-person show starring Canadian Theatre Legend Walter Borden. Adapting Ovid’s ancient world epic poem for a two-hour show of the Greek and the Roman myths behind much of Western Civilization’s underpinnings—Narcissus and Echo, the birth of Adonis, the full story of Pyramus and Thisbe (so bowdlerized by William Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Rude Mechanicals)—this Metamorphoses is a visual and narrative delight.
Walter Borden begins the two-act adaptation with successive ‘fireside chats’, mixing in some autobiographical material before launching into the myths. He’s accompanied onstage by musician Hilary Adams, who delivers her own music (along with some by actor/singer Stewart Leger). Adam’s presence adds a layer of counterpoint to Borden’s storytelling; sometimes she sings, wordlessly, in a kind of wailing lament. Other times she produces percussive sounds that provide an elemental rhythm to the proceedings. It’s simple but very effective.
Walter Borden’s delivery—a buttery lullaby cadence that makes every word an audible pleasure—animates the stories beautifully. The tale of Narcissus and Echo, where Narcissus rejects all who fall in love with his beauty and the Gods curse him to fall in love with his own reflection in a clear pool of water, receives a poignant retelling from the actor, who manages to imbue Narcissus with a kind of sultry dignity.
Borden’s telling of Pyramus and Thisbe returns the tale to its tragic origins, complete with a Romeo-and-Juliet-style conclusion. The actor lets the ending serve as a launching pad for the play’s conclusion, where he imagines himself dead in Grade Four in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, watching his family and neighbourhood ‘from the height of two power poles’.
This final sequence makes great use of the small, precise bits of puppetry and staging that punctuate the show. Chris Little’s ‘Kinetic Art Design’ uses small objects—a revolving tree, a human figure on a dias moving even more slowly—as visual touchpoints. Lights manipulated from low angles throw giant shadows against the backdrop. Suddenly the show
moves from a small-scale story to a universal tale set in the greater cosmos. It’s a striking bit of staging; Christian Barry is credited with the remarkable lighting design.
The stage itself exemplifies the show’s play with scale. Borden sits facing the audience with a huge Victorian-style table in front of him. It could seat at least 30 people, taking up the entire downstage. The table’s size creates space for the tree and human figures; it also suggests the breadth of the stories and how much space they take up in our conscious and unconscious lives.
At the outset of the play, Borden states that the treatment focuses on some of the most radical transformations in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. While the actor’s wondrous narration makes the production seem initially warm and inviting, the actual tales detail some rash and unpleasant acts, incest included. 2b Theatre’s approach is not to sugarcoat but to explore the stories vividly and thoroughly. They succeed, definitively, in both cases.
The word ‘spellbinding’ more than adequately describes this production. Highly recommended.
Metamorphoses by Ovid, adapted by the Company (2b Theatre)
Performer: Walter Borden
Directed by Christian Barry and Jacob Sampson
Original Music created by Stewart Legere and Hilary Adams
Performed Onstage by Hilary Adams
Lighting Design by Christian Barry
Kinetic Art Design by Christ Little
Stage Management by Christine Oakey
Production Management by Zack Faye
Costume Design by Diego Cavedon Dias
At the Bus Stop Theatre in Halifax until October 4 during the Prismatic Festival
