Other People: Daniel Brooks does not retreat
23 Mar 2022

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Bronwen Sharp

Daniel Brooks dances flirtatiously across the front of the stage, winking and inviting the audience to identify with his everyman persona. He takes his shoes off before climbing onto the sacred space of the stark stage and announces, "I'm nervous but I'll take you through this thing with flying colours." He is our host but we are quickly his confidants. He tells us that he has received a diagnosis of terminal cancer, "My days are numbered and I'm spending them with you." He refers to the character he is playing as separate to who he is, but then refers to the character and himself as "we." The lines are blurred, Other People is intimately autobiographical but also carefully and cleverly theatrically constructed. 

From there Brooks, his only prop being a chair, regales us with his fears, his dreams and his philosophical struggles. The monologue whiplashes from stand-up comedy - the "perks of having cancer" and instructions on what not to say to someone with cancer - to explosions of rage and grief. He tell us how he decided he wanted to "die well," to be free of anger, fear and regrets. To accomplish this he signs up for a ten-day meditation retreat where there is no speaking or communication, only meditation, diving into himself. The meditation practice he signs up for strives to bring the participants into only the present. They explore their bodies metaphysically but are aiming for a "tingle," a nirvana of bliss and acceptance manifesting physically. 

The guru guiding them, himself eight-years dead and now instructing on tape, warns that they cannot shut off their minds. Whatever thoughts they have must be accepted and not just dismissed or repressed. That becomes the structure of Other People. Brooks briefly explains the goal of the day's form of meditataion and then becomes distracted by memories, thoughts, pertinent literary musings and the body he is living in. Unspoken is that the cancer and his awareness of impending death is continually intruding on his ability to achieve the tingle. How can he clear his mind with that imposing weight on his psyche?

Brooks also spends much time describing his fellow meditators. They have vowed to be silent so have not even been able to introduce themselves. Brooks gives them nicknames and describes his imaginings of who they are. He also admits to being very "judgemental," and while many of the observations are wickedly funny, some are lashing out. He observes and evaluates, distancing himself from them and from himself. When his fellow travelers do get to introduce themselves, their histories and who they are do not necessairly match Brooks's musings. Without conversation they are unknowable, just as it is impossible to dialogue with a disease. They have been forced to co-exist without the tool of speech to make that possible. He has to achieve the tingle of acceptance of the others. Of himself. Of the cancer.

Other People is a roller coaster of emotional states and styles. What could easily be cynical, bitter or overwrought, is leavened with the aforementioned comedy and impeccable stagecraft. Brooks is an amiable and engaging performer. While appearing to simply talk to us intimately, he shifts moods and physicality to enhance or undercut the words. An essay becomes an opera, with the tangents as musical emotional flourishes. This is not surprising as the creators are all seasoned and potent theatre workers. What is important to note is not just their credits, but also all the places they overlap (and it should also be noted that these are just the productions I have reviewed and does not include the ones I have seen and enjoyed or am chagrined that I missed. As Brooks says offhandedly while listing his achievements, "I have a Dora.").

Other People is presented in a variation of the highly successful and influential work done by Brooks (Let's Run Away, The Runner, Who Killed Spalding Gray?) and dramaturge Daniel MacIvor (Let's Run Away, New Magic Valley Fun Town, Who Killed Spalding Gray?, Cake and Dirt, A Beautiful View, Arigato Tokyo, The Best Brothers, His Greatness). One can't begin to imagine the emotional stamina it took to fashion the raw material (Brooks snuck a pen and notebook into the retreat) into a coherent if deliberatly disjointed narrative. When the writing clicks it is spellbinding, with phrases and symbols resurfacing in different contexts and one-liners crafted out of despair. The mis-steps are small: the energy of the prose sags towards the end, bogged down by the meditation explanations, and the mysterious "her" who is treated as a Rosebud throughout is never explained. But then the ending of Other People is, like Brooks's fate, left open-ended simply because it isn't finished yet. There is no catharsis beyond the theatrical.

Director Brendan Healy (How to Fail as a Popstar, Acha Bacha, The 20th of November, Pig, Arigato, Tokyo, The Silicone Diaries) mutes the Brooks/MacIvor favoured sturm und drung lighting effects so that when they occur it is shattering. Focussing the drama directly on the energy generated by Brooks's performance. There is also movement coaching from  Adam Lazarus (Brotherhood: The Hip Hopera, The Art of Building a Bunker) that extends far beyond the dance number that opens the show. Brooks has many marks to hit in the midst of intense conversational moments, and his loose and casual physicality belies that feat. The precision lighting is by Kimberly Purtell and the subtle and shocking sonics courtesy of Thomas Ryder Payne (Buffoon, Copy That, We Are Not Alone, Hamlet, Prince Hamlet, Blood Weddings, The Gay Heritage Project). These are all exceptionally talented theatre artists, united in a labour of love to provide a glimpse into the soul of Brooks, in what may very well be his last project. Other People makes what happens to other people, what happens to a specific person and thus to us all.