Carnival Knowledge
Written, performed, and directed by Rob Faust
Presented by Faustwork Mask Theatre
SummerWorks Festival
Running until August 16
By Leif Conti-Groome
Carnival Knowledge’s aim was to present New Orleans’ Carnival Festival through mask and theatre conventions. To this extent the show succeeded, but probably not in the way it intended. The festival is known to be, other than rambunctious and uninhibited, a hodgepodge of different traditions and energies.
Rob Faust’s masks are all expressive and interesting, but his work ranges from downright creative to rudimentary. The show follows suit with this imbalance.
The main storytelling gimmick used, quite effectively, is a street-talking mask salesman displaying his wares at Mardi Gras. The charismatic Faust played an equally charming salesperson who dons his masks for curious passersby, hoping to make a sale. The interactions between seller and invisible potential customers were almost as entertaining as the many characters spilling out of the masks.
Highlights included a shocked Nova Scotian at his first Carnival (complete with bulging eyes) and the first stage of drunkenness as portrayed by a mask displaying a smirk. Not as strong was Faust’s donning of a tiny mask where he repeated the same confused gestures over and over. The changes between scenes were also a problem, with wait times up to thirty seconds and lighting straight out of a high-school auditorium.
If Carnival Knowledge was a half-hour show dedicated to the mask salesman bit, it would not have ended up a random mess of ideas. Scenes depicting a young football player (as evidenced by his old-timey helmet) and a Lennon-like pothead are interspersed between the initial “story” and are revealed to be an autobiographical journey for Faust.
Another scene, this time using a mask, had a professor going over the early history of Carnival with rather bloody pagan rituals. While not necessarily a weak part of the whole piece, it still felt out of place.
The program states that the show is for mature audiences (which is completely untrue) and that it “integrates monologues, masks, music, and multiple roles into one tour de force performance.” Basically, it’s a slick way of saying it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Nowhere is this more obvious than the final number: a 20-minute monologue slash performance in a fat suit, where Faust fondly recalls his black nanny as a child. The scene is touching, but has no impetus for inclusion.
Other than some strong mask work, Carnival Knowledge is more of a crapshoot than a solid performance.
