SummerWorks 2008 Wrap-Up: Emergencies and Fairy Tales

It's your absolute last chance to catch something at SummerWorks before the Indie Theatre and Arts Festival closes up shop for another year. Last night, two of the more interesting shows at the festival had their closing night performances. Fewer Emergencies, a collection of three potentially related short plays by British playwright Martin Crimp, is a show unconventional even for absurdist drama that's as likely to be called a masterpiece as a piece of something else entirely. A Soldier's Story/L'Histoire du Soldat, on the other hand, is an extremely accessible show that combines storytelling, dance, and a chamber orchestra to tell an old Russian fairytale.

Martin Crimp's writing is often compared to that of Pinter, but while there is a similar detached tone and focus on domestic alienation, there is a huge stylistic difference. Instead of acting out the story, the actors in Fewer Emergencies sit in chairs in front of microphones telling it, at times taking on the role of a character, at times struggling to remember the way the story goes, at times seeming to make it up as they go along. The stories themselves get further and further away from reality as the show progresses, but somehow always remain compelling and affecting. A lot of this has to do with the superb cast, in particular Erin Shields (playwright of If We Were Birds), who is intensely likable. There's no way this show is going to be everyone's cup of tea, but even if you prefer more traditional storytelling, it's hard not to haunted by some of the play's images.

It's a real treat to see something like A Soldier's Story at a summer festival. When we hear "one hour musical at a summer theatre festival," some of us probably imagine ourselves yawning our way through some half-assed ballad punctuating a slap-dash ironic Fringe show with a title something like ThunderCats vs. Rainbow Brite: The Musical. What a delightful change of pace, then, to hear Flaming Mamie Productions' seven-piece orchestra performing Stravinsky's gorgeous score while a troupe of three highly-talented actors tell the story of the soldier who foolishly trades his violin to the devil. This is a show that would be as magical for children as it is charming for adults, filled with beautiful music, accomplished physical theatre, and vivid storytelling. (Side salad: a somewhat different version of the tale was made for Jim Henson's fabulous The Storyteller series with John Hurt.)

Image taken from the SummerWorks website.