The Rage of Narcissus: meta-autofiction as a thriller
20 May 2023

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

Art has value if "even for a moment it allows us to suspend our terror of impending death." Or so quotes playwright Sergio Blanco in The Rage of Narcissus. Blanco, who is also the main character in the play, is much given to such pretentious pronouncements and quotes. Yet he also condemns his colleagues who live in an academic bubble. They are ignoring the real world which has "become a desperate graveyard of human beings." Blanco is a renowned philologist who has arrived in Toronto to give a speech, "The Poetic Gaze of Narcissus and the Transformation of Reality." At this point it is important to note that although The Rage of Narcissus has many lofty concerns and considerable intellectual references, it is at heart a thriller with undertones of horror and overtones of a whodunit. And yes, you will be thrilled as the tension mounts and the twists tighten.

Actor Matthew Romantini strolls on stage and announces that he is not Sergio Blanco but he will do his best to portray Blanco. He is very honoured that Blanco wrote The Rage of Narcissus specifically for Romantini, based on actual events that happened in Toronto when Blanco was presenting a paper at a University of Toronto conference. He tells us that The Rage of Narcissus is a piece of 'autofiction.' Romantini is casual, rumpled, and easily takes us into his confidence. Then he becomes Blanco and the play begins. Blanco/Romantini grounds us in his hotel room, number 228, and begins to narrate the events of his stay. He rehearses his presentation, goes for runs, discovers copious bloodstains on the carpet, visits the woolly mammoth skeleton at the ROM, admires Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless, expounds on his theories about art and the Narcissus myth, skypes with his mother, and, as all travellers do, gets on Grindr and orders in.

His Grindr date, Greg, is "magnificent" both physically and sexually. However Greg becomes demanding and stalkerish, the bloodstains are a nagging problem, and The Rage of Narcissus grows dark with an aura of inevitable foreboding. Blanco/Romantini is engaging and holds the audience in the palm of his hand throughout repeated breaking of the fourth wall, a lot of theory, and substantial sexual braggadocio. Blanco, the playwright, is fascinated by how we desire being watched and admired. We are all narcissists. To this end director Marcio Beauclair and set designer Renato Baldin have furnished room 228 with an abundance of mirrors. As much as Greg and Blanco/Romantini enjoy gazing at each other, at themselves in the mirrors, when the lights are angled just so, we also see ourselves. Watching Blanco/Romantini watching himself watching us watching him and watching ourselves. Theatre as a metaphor for theatre, the artist's gaze, the gay gaze, and narcissism.

The multiple layers of meta-fiction and autofiction sound overly erudite in hindsight, but as The Rage of Narcissus progresses, it is a lean, mean thriller. The threads pull together inexorably, leading to one truly gasp-inducing 'aha' moment. That that is followed by an illogically logical section meant to shock and horrify, but that doesn't quite make it beyond puzzling comedy. Fortunately The Rage of Narcissus is redeemed by another series of twists that are delightfully morbid, satisfying and disorienting. Immediately after the curtain I googled to make sure that Sergio Blanco was a real playwright, thinking perhaps I had been duped yet again. Blanco, Romantini and Beauclair are all artists taking our gaze, our credulity, our sexual hunger, our gay mores, and twisting them back upon us in a thought-provoking but, above all, entertaining way.