Rabbit Rabbit
Written by Amy Lee Lavoie
Directed by Ron Klappholz
Featuring Alex McCooeye and Katie Swift
SummerWorks Festival
Running until August 16
By Leif Conti-Groome
Rabbit Rabbit is an intense play; it deals with some edgy material about fetishism, age, and maturity. Not only does this hour of theatre provide great acting, but the writing is sharp and the characters are strong. The direction keeps these elements crammed together to create some great meshing and friction. But unfortunately, it’s an incredibly well done but rather formulaic piece of theatre.
Browsing through the brochure you’ll notice the letters NTS appearing frequently; all members of the production team have gone or are presently going to National Theatre School. This is probably the reason for the by-the-book problems.
The story — a pedophilic clown (Alex McCooeye) meets with an underage prostitute (Katie Swift) in a hotel room — is shocking enough to grab your attention, and the realistic characters mould the often ignored subject matter into something tangible. The central metaphor arrives and is paralleled on stage by inventive blocking. Motivations are revealed through an impassioned monologue. But Amy Lee Lavoie’s play could use more spirit than substance.
That said, there’s still much to enjoy in Rabbit Rabbit. Top of the list: Alex McCooeye’s conflicted Larry in clown make-up. Not for one moment was I distracted from the actor’s anxiety, awkwardness, and on-the-fence mentality regarding his horrible fetish and his “humanitarianism.”
Katie Swift’s Britney refers to Larry as a humanitarian. It’s explained that her vocabulary is largely based on exercises she stole from a client who is a grammar-Nazi high-school teacher. Swift overcame many of the challenges created by this odd choice of writing, but she stumbled a few times with Britney’s young age versus her early maturity.
At one point Britney role-plays Larry’s interest in a young girl but cannot complete the fantasy. The brilliant acting and strength of this one simple scene was enough to keep my brain going for the rest of the night.
The set was bare-bones and functional, except for plastic tarp at the back that represented the walls of the hotel. It became a canvas for Larry’s makeup as he squished his face in order to hear his favourite prostitute. These smudges kept the outline of the clown’s face, creating powerful images that lasted the entire show. McCooeye’s costuming also invoked some deliciously absurd pictures, mainly due to his baggy clown pants.
After an anti-climactic conclusion, the applause was not overwhelming. This was not a slight against the play, but rather an indication of how much we had to digest.
