XXX Live Nude Girls
By Jennifer Walshe
Directed by Graham Cozzubbo
Musical Direction by Gregory Oh
Featuring Christine Duncan, Kate Fenton, Ginette Mohr, Patricia O’Callahan
SummerWorks Festival
Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace
By Matt McGeachy
XXX Live Nude Girls bills itself as a “doll opera.” It is the only time I can recall where, if not bound by professional ethics to see the show in its entirety, I would have walked out after the first fifteen minutes. This show was so ill-conceived, so poorly performed, so self-indulgent — in short, so bad — that my initial irritation gave way to shock followed quickly by indignation, and finally, succumbed to pity for the performers.
At stage right were the musicians. Centre stage was occupied by vocalists Duncan and O’Callahan, and stage left by a giant dollhouse, where the two “actors” Fenton and Mohr enacted “scenes” with Barbie dolls while being filmed by two cameras and projected onto two large screens behind the ensemble. Surtitles supposed to give some narrative thread were projected onto one of the screens. In the interest of fairness, it should be noted that one of the cameras and therefore one of the projection screens went out during the show in what appeared to be a technical difficulty rather than an artistic choice; I won’t hold that against them. Everything else is fair game.
The noises — that’s all they can be called since it bore no resemblance to anything close to music — made by the musicians and the screeches and mutterings of the vocalists created the most awful cacophony you can imagine. (Think of skinning a squirrel while cars honk at you in support, while Margaret Thatcher rails at you to stop.) The supposed “acting” taking place at the other end of the stage held no allure. Doll sex scenes stopped being funny with Team America.
The worst thing about the show was that it robbed me even of the pleasure of writing a bad review (quite a feat). I take no pleasure in saying this, but mean it very seriously: stop. All of you involved in this production, please, please, stop making this type of rubbish. Whatever you think you are doing, whatever mores you think you are challenging: you aren’t. You’re making shite that neither conforms to typical standards of pleasure nor challenges convention; all you succeeded in doing was gratifying your selfish needs to be on stage. You have robbed me of whatever eloquence I may possess: Just stop.
