Dedicated to You, The Wonderful Audience is a piece of relatively simple self-conscious theatre that emerged from the playwright—August Van Meekeren, who also plays the central character named ‘One’—after some mental health problems. Initially a non-responsive lump, One ends up in treatment a couple of times before he starts to come around. Meanwhile, his roommate, Two, appropriates his narrative for a touring theatre project. T
The play quickly shifts tone toward theatricality, and the story is re-enacted as a kind of government mental-health long-form television advertisement, to One’s horror and displeasure.
A third character, a mean, driven theatre director named Zero, complete with a clipboard and a list of orders from the Theatre Gods, hovers over the production like an undigested meal.
Director Kaitlyn Thompkins makes great use of these tonal shifts, from naturalistic to theatrical, turning the switch on and off. She lets Van Meerkeren’s character drift slowly toward normalcy, despite the growing conflict over the potential exploitation of his life story.
The compact cast includes Van Meerkeren, joined by a bouncy Laura Spencer as Two, someone who loves the theatre, knows the theatre doesn’t love her back, and sees One’s Narrative as her last chance to make a living on stage. Ben Burchill plays the nurse and blood-taking tech who natters on about Watership Down; the narrative hints that his character might be more than a friend to One in his upcoming recovery. Zero, the director, is played with forceful authority by Cat McCluskey; she inhales and exhales all the worst aspects of theatre like an aspiring dragon.
A lingering denouement lets Van Meekeren’s One confront his audience and seek a larger equilibrium. This provokes the evil director character to complain that he’s gone off script and is endangering the narrative itself. Presented offhand and rather nonchalantly, this raises some basic questions: What is Theatre For? What does Theatre Do?
By the time the 80-minute production is over, you feel you’ve been treated to a little revelation.
Fun, direct and engaging, Dedicated to You, The Wonderful Audience turns out to be highly original, deftly delivered and thoroughly enjoyable
.With almost nothing on stage—just some chairs and apple boxes to represent the apartment and the hospital ward, the staging is basic and unaffected. There is a bit of lurking music—sound design and music by the playwright—and some bright costumes for Laura Spencer, the most theatrical person on stage, but the production rests mostly on its punchy writing, vivid direction, and excellent acting.
Dedicated to You, The Wonderful Audience is playing until November 12.
Highly recommended.
Dedicated to You, The Wonderful Audience by August Van Meekeren.
Presented by STFU Theatre at the Bus Stop in Halifax.
Cast
One-August Van Meekeren
Two-Laura Spencer
Nurse-Ben Burchill
Zero- Cat McCluskey
Director-Kaitlyn Thompkins
Assistant Director- Hal Roman
Stage Manager-Emma Lamont
Lighting Design/Technician- Thunder Defayette
Costumes/Dresser/Wardrobe-Sara Cooper
Composer/Sound Design-August Van Meekeren
