This Wednesday, I went to see Proud by Michael Healey. It’s
a political comedy about Stephen Harper (that’s the Prime Minister of Canada
for you non-Canadian readers), and his attempts to use a rookie Conservative
MP, named Jisbella, to further his agenda.
Okay, I know this doesn't sound like a gut buster. For a lot of people, Canadian politics is about as interesting as a soggy piece of Wonder bread, and I am not exactly a fan of the theatre - hell, I have a blog dedicated to comic book movies. But I actually had a good time! And the play was pretty damn funny, too.
The twist is that it takes place in an alternate
reality where the Conservatives won an overwhelming majority in the 2011
election. Harper (Ross McMillan) is more
powerful than ever, but he realizes that most Canadians either didn’t vote, or
didn’t vote for him. So, if he’s going to make any controversial moves, he
needs someone even more controversial to hog the spotlight and keep the press
occupied.
That’s where Jisbella (Daria Puttaert) comes in – she drunkenly
stumbles into the Prime Minister’s office looking for a condom.
Harper and his aid, Cary (Eric Blais), decide that Jisbella is the
perfect pawn for their evil schemes. (I kept imagining Harper as the Emperor and Cary as Darth Vader) But Jisbella proves to be smarter than they thought. When
Harper blackmails her, she blackmails him right back, and the two make an uneasy
alliance that eventually devolves into a sex comedy.
Here’s what worked.
The play begins right after the Conservative victory in 2011
with McMillan addressing the crowd (as Harper) like we were freshly elected
MP’s, laying down the ground rules to Harper’s government: don’t talk to
anyone, and don’t ever talk to the press. It’s a good introduction to a
play that peeks behind closed doors.
Eric Blais deserves praise for his performance as Harper’s
loyal servant. He’s stiff but charming – a perfect fit for the role.
McMillan is excellent as Stephen Harper. He’s mastered Harper’s
measured restraint, and it was a thrill to see the façade slowly slipping away.
McMillan made a great insight, saying Harper’s persona is just a character he plays
for the public. After seeing McMillan’s performance, I couldn’t agree more.
Healey’s taken the Prime Minister we see on TV – the tight
around the collar, two-timing, power-hungry, robot – and made him into a flawed
human being, or as Jisbella calls him, a cunt with a haircut.
That brings me to what didn’t work.
Daria Puttaert plays Jisbella with constant intensity. She comes
in at a 10 and there’s nowhere to go from there but down. Healey is partly to
blame. Every other word shouted (and I do mean shouted) by Jisbella is
four-lettered so her character became grating. It didn’t help that Puttaert
didn’t use the room all that well.
My biggest complaint with theatre (all theatre) is that
playing to a big house leaves very little room for subtlety. The Rachel Browne
Theatre is pretty small so Puttaert could have toned it down a little. Despite this, Puttaert and McMillan have great chemistry, and their scenes had the whole room in stitches.
While Jisbella’s son, Jake (Kevin P. Gabel), is an
interesting character played well, he spends most of the play sitting in the
dark. Actors are already moving furniture around between scenes; there’s really
no reason to keep an actor sitting off to the side for that length of time, and
I found it distracting. That being said, setting his scenes in the future was
imaginative and expanded the story in an interesting direction.
Overall, I really liked Proud. My biggest complaint is both
the character and portrayal of Jisbella, but I thought the play struck a nice
balance between silly and serious, political cat-and-mouse game and sex comedy.
And most importantly, it made me laugh.
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