SummerWorks: celebrating the possibilities of performance
05 Aug 2019

by Drew Rowsome -

The SummerWorks festival whose raison d'etre is "continuously re-imagining and innovating the possibilities of performance- how it is created, presented and experienced," is also filled with artists exploring and experimenting. Some shows are theatrical productions, some fall under the umbrella of SummerWorks Lab programming where they are nurtured into what they will become. All of the runs are short but most are guaranteed to offer excitement and intrigue. In no particular order, here are a handful of productions that have my attention.

White Heat has already been previewed with an interview with playwright Graham Isador. The only comment that needs to be added is that Isador, as well as being provocative and thought-provoking, is able to distill complex ideas into witty and entertaining forms, whether essays or theatre. He's also wildly ambitious and is going for broke with a stellar cast.

Conveyed with the use of a "hacked overhead projector," Davis Plett performs a trans coming out story, 805-4821, that involves excerpts from Hamlet, a voluminous Facebook correspondence, and memories of a swimming lesson. Plett has a reputation as a kinetic performer so it won't be a dry audio-visual presentation but rather something immersive and, his words, suited for this "age of apocalypse."

Sunny Drake (No Strings (Attached), X) returns to SummerWorks with CHILD-ISH, based on interviews with children about love and dating. It comes with a warning about sexual references attached. The children's words are performed by adults including the magnificent Walter Borden (Lilies; Or, The Revival of a Romantic Drama, Harlem Duet, Gerontophilia). Drake has a deft comic touch with sexualized material, a gift for creating theatrical visuals that astonish, and apparently a rapport with children.

Worry Warts takes one-on-one interviews with an audience member on "what keeps you up at night?" processes them, and, anonymity preserved, theatricalizes them into performances on the last weekend of the festival. It is the artistic team that makes Worry Warts stand out. If one's night terrors are going to be discussed and then brought to life, best it is in the capable hands of Sadie Epstein-Fine (Freda and Jem's Best of the Week), Jeff Ho (Iphigenia and the Furies, Box 4901, trace, Prince Hamlet), Andy Trithardt (Big Plans, Sucker, Delicacy, Rock) and over a dozen more worry warts.

Choreographer Celia Jade Green explodes with Wah Wah Wah where "through extreme physicality, tantrums, and pigs, a young queer woman grapples with the messiness of being violated." And just how insidious, frequent and unquantifiable violation is. Dramaturged by Bilal Baig (Box 4901, Acha Bacha).

Jamillah Ross plays parking enforcement officer Rita Mae Nelson in St Peon of Parkdale. The site-specific piece involves travelling the beat with Officer Nelson through the streets of Parkdale where much can happen outside the events scripted and directed by Caroline Azar of the legendary band Fifth Column as well as many theatrical and film gigs.

Playwright David Yee (No Foreigners) teams up with director Nina Lee Aquino (James and the Giant Peach, Scarberia, Banana Boys) and a sprawling cast pulled from the graduating class of York University's theatre department, to revisit the '60s sex, drugs and rock n roll experiment that was Rochdale College. No word on whether or not Rochdale's most notorious survivor and exponent, Reg Hartt, will be appearing.

S Bear Bergman (Blood, Marriage, Wine and Glitter) is hosting a Gender Reveal Party. And yes, it will be as subversive and uproarious as that sounds: "a garden party fantasy of gendered revelations, where the highlights and surprises shared are decided by the person doing the revealing (and where there are always more than two choices)." Chy Ryan Spain (Box 4901, Queer Bathroom Stories, Of a Monstrous Child: A Gaga Musical) is one of the revellers/revealers and there are refreshments served in the open air atop the Theatre Centre.

Audible Songs from Rockwood is a theatrical song cycle "based on case files of people incarcerated at Rockwood Asylum for the Criminally Insane between 1856-1881." This intense, heartrending and folky material will get a boost from director and co-creator, and no musical slouch himself, Frank Cox-O’Connell (Hand to God, Rose, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet).

The Lester Trips team that created Mr Truth continue their quest to mine comedy and drama out of uncomfortable and insightful explorations of sexuality. Safe and Sorry concerns a man who teaches "a pragmatic dating and pick-up seminar." Success brings him new students and success but also online trolls. The core Trips duo of Lauren Gillis (The Marquise of O) and Alaine Hutton are assisted by director Chelsea Dab Hilke, consulting director Adam Lazarus (The Art of Building a Bunker) and the projections and film design of Peter Demas.

The collectively created queer young adult scifi The Breath Between, is best described by just quoting the blurb: "Forced to live under the cover and control of The Dome since the climate catastrophe, queer youth of Tkaronto emerge for the first Pride event in years, only to discover it is not the celebration they had hoped it would be. A small band of them break out of the dystopia and journey into space to explore the meaning of community, connection, and home."

More scifi, but of the dance variety is on display in burn, burned where "in a fictitious future, after decades of race wars, a cadre of revolutionaries struggle to pick up the pieces." When one of the revolutionaries is artivist Rodney Diverlus, there is hope for the fragile future.

Many of the SummerWorks productions, particularly the SummerWorks Lab programming, includes Q&As or discussions. There are also several workshops, long tables and, of course, parties and pop-ups. The thoughts above are only my personal observations, as the festival progresses other productions will reveal that they are must-sees, and there will inevitably be productions that I regret missing or listing here. Like the work of the artists of SummerWorks, this is a grand opportunity to explore, experiment and take risks in choosing what you want to experience.