The Cold War: an explosion of hilarity in a black box
6 May 2022

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Michael Cooper @coopershoots

Despite my many years as a Canadian, a Torontoian, and an avid theatre-goer, I have to confess that this is the first time I have had the incredible experience of a VideoCabaret production. I now regret my egregious oversight. The company dates back to 1976 and the current production, The Cold War, was first presented in 1995. Like many theatre companies, VideoCabaret has bounced around venues as they created their 21 play cycle The History of the Village of the Small Huts. Why, during their long residency at The Cameron House - which earned Doras and word of mouth that I was well aware of - I missed out, is lost to time. Now ensconced in their new home at 10 Busy St, I hope to make up for lost opportunities.

Canadian history has, like most history, a bum rap probably earned in high school classes that relied on a dull recitation of facts. VideoCabaret presents an explosion of fast-paced ideas interlocking to show where we've come from, where we went wrong, and where me might be going. The Cold War focusses on the years right after World War II and continues into the late 1950s. While it probably helps to have a vague knowledge of that time period, most of us weren't even born in the era of great Canadian characters and eccentrics like John Diefenbaker, Mackenzie King and Igor Gouzenko. Mix in Russian spies, LSD experiments, beatniks, brainwashing by governmental agencies and mad doctors, the initial stirrings of feminism, the Canadian version of McCarthyism, and US rapaciousness towards our natural resources, and there is a lot of madcap material drawn upon. 

Yes, The Cold War is a history lesson, but it is a bonkers one. The presentation occurs within a brand spanking new version of VideoCabaret's famous 'black box.' The frame echoes and satirizes television as a medium while also exploding it with impressive antics that could only exist in a live presentation. The scenes are short, succint and sidesplitting, interspersed with blackouts and occasional projections that appear on the screen separating us from the performers. At first the projections seemed too infrequent until the sparse use pays off with a sight gag that flings every 3D horror film into our laps. Effective and fabulous. But it is what happens within the box that is outside the box.

All the stellar actors - Aurora Browne (Gash!), Valerie Buhagiar (Lulu v7, Botecelli in the Fire & Sunday in Sodom), Greg Campbell (Out, Heart of Steel, Firebrand), Richard Alan Campbell, Richard Clarkin (Great Great Great), Kimwun Perehinec and Cliff Saunders (Hamlet) - have their faces coated in thick white, almost Kabuki make-up and switch costumes and wigs with wild abandon to portray multiple characters. They have seconds to create an indelible impression, make a point, and then get ready to become someone else during the next blackout. While more Ludlam than Streep, it works fantastically. A clown instantly gets our empathy and can gleefully telegraph their basic motivation through physicality, attire or with the cartoonish colourful props. Almost always recognizable as they switch characters, they also achieve the impossible, distinct personalities, traits and impressions. Clarkin plays a beatnik roué with chiseled features but when he becomes Diefenbaker, I would swear that I saw the requisite jowls jiggling. 

Gender, another clowning target, is also ignored. Buhagiar is a sexpot and a hard-boiled detective. Saunders goes from an asexual McKenzie King (complete with a scene-stealing puppet dog) to a milquetoast Lester Pearson to a blonde temptress. There is a subtext when the government cracks down on the "deeply perverted" "homos" while crossdressing and gender illusion confusion is erupting before us. This is made explicit when Campbell's rough and tumble husband also appears as the nurse administering electroshock to subdue the recalcitrant wife who was previously shocked at his infidelities (itself another great sight gag). These are cardboard characters manipulated to tell a story and propound a theory, but also living, breathing characters with hearts beneath the greasepaint. If the action were not so quick paced and so exhiliaratingly funny, there would have been enough confusion to stymie Strasberg. 

It should also be noted that the costumes and props (kudos to Astrid Janson, Melanie McNeill and Shadowland Theatre) are thrift store chic and emphasis cleverness and colour over reality. Everything is threaded with light-catching glitter and razzle dazzle. A simple object or symbol (or an outrageously complicated bit of puppetry) anchors the action in a time and place. Again clowning at its finest. Directors Michael Hollingsworth (co-founder of VideoCabaret) and Mac Fyfe manage the unenviable task of making Hollingsworth's script not only come to life but move props and characters on and off the stage, in and out of costumes, while hitting their marks in pinpoint lighting. If some of the blackouts drag a little, they also build anticipation for what will come next. And that foreshadowing is the one downfall of The Cold War. Just as the action has spiralled to the giddy, heady anticipation of a cathartic climax, it is announced that this is Part One and we are cockteased with a coming attractions highlight sample of Part Two. It works. I will return to Busy St for Part Two and hopefully many more of the plays comprising The History of The Village of Small Huts.