Helen Juvonen and Tyler Seguin in The Universal Wolf. Photo by Tim Hennigar.
The Universal Wolf
Presented by Thought for Food
Bread and Circus (299 Augusta Ave)
Fri July 10 @ 8:15pm
Sat July 11 @ 10:15pm
Sun July 12 @ 4:30pm
Reviewed by Daina Valiulis
The Universal Wolf takes the story of Little Red Riding Hood in it’s salivating jaws and mangles it fairly deliciously. Even so, there was a number of puzzling elements of this production, which were annoying, yet clever, putting this production in the pesky grey area of success.
Most strikingly successful was Joan Schenkar’s writing. A professional author in her own right, Schenkar is represented onstage by The Reader (Paul Rivers) who annoyingly reads all the stage directions and descriptions of the characters while they mime beside him. His voice was unnecesarily loud for such a small space and his presence on the stage was irritating. Despite these infractions, however, the intelligence of the writing shone through and there were enough scenes with dialogue between the characters to contrast his one-man show. Ultimately, though annoyingly, it made sense to use him to help tell the story per the heavy theme of deconstruction.
Interesting and at the same time lofty was how this production explored not only the deconstruction of a narrative, but also the deconstruction of a play: At one point, the characters make the audience read part of the narrative from the program and The Reader frequently refers to various intellectual theorists, artists, and scholars who “appear on a screen” on a stage that actually doesn’t exist: The Reader merely describes how these people comment on themes being presented on stage. The “commentators” include Claude Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Lacan and their supposed relevance is summarized in the program. Putting important information in the program was an interesting choice, if bothersome to a “lazy” audience member.
Also irksome was Little Red herself (Helen Juvonen). She was blank of expression and devoid of personality — so much that Grandmere (Sarah Davey, the best performer in the show) kills her at the end to satisfy her morbidity and obsession with death (and also because she’s irritating).
In all, a really annoying piece that was at times fairly enjoyable.
