La Bete: riotous comedy that vivisects theatre, culture and the contemporary
31 May 2018

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

Though La Bete was written in 1991 and is set it 1634, it could be torn from today's Twitter feed. Kudos to Soulpepper, director Tanja Jacobs and lively cast for driving the point home without ever once dropping a topical reference for a quick laugh or political jab. Instead they let the words pierce through the froth to float as pretty poison as potent as the clown Valere's frequent flatulence. 

Yes, there are fart jokes. But crude is to be expected from a street performer whose claim to fame is the dramatic tour de force, The Dying Clown. His art is lauded by the Princess Conti who says, "I cried. He showed that clowns have feelings too." And when asked to perform an excerpt, Valere demurs claiming, "Without the cow, they wouldn't understand." Of course he is persuaded, more coerced, and the results are not only hysterically funny but also a nasty satire on self-indulgent performance art, clowning and theatre in general.

The basic premise is the Elomire, yes it is an anagram, runs an artistically successful, commercially failing, theatre troupe, supported financially by the Princess Conti. The princess has discovered Valere and thinks his brash comedy might be just the thing to kick-start the theatre company out of its rut. She arranges, more commands, a meeting between Elomire and Valere and the fireworks begin. The conflict is not only between two forms of theatre - high brow and intellectual versus popular and vulgar - but also between classes, social mores and, in this production, the sexes.  

Valere states his case first and it is a grandstanding moment for Gregory Prest. He preens, cajoles, brags, is utterly self-centred, contradicts himself, flatters, whines and somehow remains oddly charming despite ragged stained clothes, the aforementioned flatulence, and an unfortunate but bizarrely sexy mullet. He is a white trash arriviste eager to prove himself in any way he can, and is willing to say and do anything for attention and success. The parallels to two current political horrors are blatant. Prest takes a flamboyant, showstopping role and plays it close to the edge, always in motion but never crossing the line where the lewd or crass becomes deplorable. 

Sarah Wilson as Elomire has the difficult task of staying engaged while Prest's near-monologue romps for close to 40 hilarious minutes. She is forced to comment and contradict using only small gestures and facial expressions. She does so admirably, reserving her biting scorn and lacerating wit for when she can interject. Her condescension is red hot and she even manages to almost navigate a long near-monologue towards the end, where she must justify protecting art from the predations of vulgar popular culture. And she has to do it in a 17th century theatrespeak and in rhyming couplets.

La Bete is written in a fast-paced rhyme structure that mashes Shakespeare and Dr Seuss. This provides many jokes but also a huge challenge for the cast, particularly when the sentences overlap between characters. It also provides even more satire on theatre as an entity, and on just how language influences the way the world or a topic are perceived. Of course it also provides an energetic rhythm that the cast gets to ride, disrupt and subtly wink at. Author David Hirson is clever with his wordplay and rhymes, only occasionally giving in to a flourish that calls attention to itself. And those are uproariously funny.

But theatre as an artform can't resist calling attention to itself, and the thespians in the troupe are a motley lot, all theatrical stereotypes and realities. Michaela Washburn (Animal Farm) relies on her voluptuousness, Paolo Santalucia (Animal Farm, The Goat or Who is Sylvia?, The Taming of the Shrew) dispenses rapid fire bitter queen insults, James Smith is a clueless stud, and Raquel Duffy (Animal Farm, The Goat or Who is Sylvia?) and Ghazal Azarbad pose and preen in a hopeless attempt to compete with Valere. They have very little time to make an individual impression but are a unified troupe far more dedicated and talented than poor Elomire's.

And it is here that Jacobs (Love and Information) et al, turn Hirson on his head. The troupe joins Valere in a production of one of his plays, a riotous farce that ends in chaos. Valere is the modern disruptor, the populist, and he has a point. La Bete never gives us a sample of Elomire's art, that would not be as entertaining. It would be very easy to slant La Bete so that Valere would be, for all his crassness, the salvation of theatre and culture. Criticism receives much badinage, not only when Valere says (I am paraphrasing as rhyming couplets are devilishly hard to quote correctly as they fly by), "We give them apples and they show us the worms," but also as a need to dig deep in the shallows.

That is the dark heart of La Bete. How much of what we see is interpreted or parsed for deeper meaning? Is a fluffy comedy well executed of equal value to an fierce drama that just misses the mark? Are good intentions even of importance? The Princess Conti, the regal and firm Rachel Jones (Late Night, Hamlet/All's Well That Ends Well), finds deep resonance in the unsubtle ravings of Valere. She marvels that the setting and caricature actually apply to her kingdom, and it is not a leap for the audience to apply it, and La Bete, to contemporary times. 

Even the voice of reason, Oliver Dennis (Animal Farm), used as a sight gag even though his reactions and double takes are priceless and subtle, turns to the path of least resistance. He gives up art and embraces the inevitable. It is a heartbreaking moment in what is otherwise pure comedy glossing over pain unless played for laughs. Success at the cost of one's soul is metaphorically embodied by the maid Dorine who opens and closes La Bete with clowning of her own invention or imagination. She is a superfluous character saddled with comic wordplay that is the only place that Hirson fails. Fortunately Dorine is essayed by Fiona Sauder (Peter Pan, The Taming of the Shrew) and she is a clown without Valere's duplicitness. Wide-eyed and physically eloquent, Sauders turns a climactic moment that is a stretch, into a thoughtful rumination on ambition.