Monster

Went to see Monster at Buddies in Toronto Thursday night. Left Waterloo at 5:30. Did not arrive in the best frame of mind for an enjoyable performance experience, as we were stuck for some 45 minutes in traffic between the 427 and the start of the Gardner. We took our seats with ten minutes to spare -- no chance to eat and nothing to eat in the Buddies canteen. So I did not have that feeling of self-satisfaction perhaps essential for puncturing by Monster: I already had a dim view of the cosmos and humanity's place in it. (Plus -- should really have used the facilities before settling in but felt ... inhibited. Not because it was a washroom in a gay theatre. But because it seemed rather too democratic -- that is to say, open, transparent -- I mean it was a public washroom! Never mind.)

So had rather a more intellectual reaction to the play than visceral. But it passed my first test for theatre which is that it should keep my mind from wandering. This is a stringent test. My mind wanders easily. Whenever I am in a theatre I am thinking how would one of my plays look on this stage? How would this audience react? And so if the action slows down just a little, I am off into fantasy land. I only had this reaction once and briefly during Monster (there was a representation of a therapy group which I found tedious.) Otherwise my attention was held and snapped back into place whenever it started to waver.

Very well lit and staged. Lots for a writer to envy in the dialog (that is, monolog -- I mean in how speech was represented.) Characters rather thin but intentionally so (I think), but still this puts it on the edge of tedious at times (with the stagecraft pulling us back.) Some amazing passages. In the end a kind of sermon (in effect, showing us hell and inviting us to look inside ourselves) but designedly so I presume (and the Scottish therapist makes me think of Presbyterianism but it seems MacIvor was raised a Catholic -- oh well, hell, damnation, whatever.) Very cold that night. Was reminded of Wyndham Lewis' description of Toronto as a "sanctimonious icebox".

Ate at a restaurant up Yonge that might have been Spanish. Nice private washroom. Glass of red wine, pizza. As Isabella has an accent and I am often mute, the head-waiter asked "L'addition?" and I said with gusto "L'addition s'il vous plait!" Embarrassed when he asked if we were from Quebec. Isabella said, no, we're just from out of town. Sped home and in bed by midnight.

Links:
Richard Ouzounian's review.
There's a review from a 1999 production in the NYTimes which, aha!, uses the word 'sermon'
And the script of Monster is available through Amazon.
(Too lazy to dig up urls.)