$pent (review)

Reviewed by: $pent Robert Knopf $pent. By Dean Gilmour, Ravi Jain, Adam Paolozza, and Michele Smith. Directed by Dean Gilmour and Michele Smith. Factory Studio Theatre, Toronto. 13 November 2010. In $pent's signature moment of pure physical theatre, two young men in suits appeared to float softly in the wind, their ties flapping in slow motion as they glided easily down, the initial panic in their eyes giving way to acceptance and even delight as they began to enjoy the ride. Beautiful, and yet subversive, the two performers portrayed stockbrokers attempting suicide by jumping from a tower on Bay Street, the center of Toronto's financial district, following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and ensuing financial crash of 2008. While the United States has remained mired in an economic and spiritual depression in the wake of this crisis, some of Canada's most talented theatre artists have opted for beauty and dark humor over direct political comment, in this collaboration of two generations of Toronto-based, Lecoq-trained physical comedians: writer-directors Michele Smith and Dean Gilmour of Theatre-Smith Gilmour, and an outstanding duo of writer-actors, Adam Paolozza of TheatreRun Canada and Ravi Jain of Why Not Theatre. In this respect, $pent can be compared to what have been called "second-generation" AIDS plays, which sacrificed the agit-prop of first-generation AIDS plays like Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart and Bill Hoffman's As Is for the flights of fantasy seen in Paula Vogel's The Baltimore Waltz and Tony Kushner's Angels in America. Combining the irreverent political humor of Michael Moore's documentaries with a riches-to-rags daydream reminiscent of the films of Buster Keaton, the performers' absolute commitment to the truth at the core of this fantasy lifted the play above simple satire. Click for larger view View full resolution Ravi Jain and Adam Paolozza in $pent. (Photo: Elisa Gilmour.) $pent was developed in performance over a year and a half, from its original version at the Clown Festival of Toronto in June 2009, to the Dora Award- winning production at the Factory Studio Theatre in October of that year, through the most recent staging at the Factory and a subsequent run at the 2011 Edinburgh Festival. The opening tableau introduced us to two former stockbrokers-turned-beggars competing for sympathy and handouts on Bay Street. Each silently pleaded with the audience for a job, although it is clear from one of their signs, which read "Will Work for $600,000," that although they relinquished their income, they did not surrender their sense of entitlement. But the actors rapidly disrupted the slow dreaminess of the initial tableau with a shift to rapid-fire parody, in which they portrayed an international cast of characters from BBC World News Tonight, including hosts, foreign correspondents, and "men on the [End Page 442] street." While effortlessly managing these seamless transitions, Paolozza and Jain worked together in extraordinary coordination, virtually becoming a single human machine and transforming themselves from character to character at lightning-fast speeds. Having set up these two strands of the story—the two brokers and the news commentary from around the world—the play then catapulted back and forth between verbal parody and physical comedy/mime to reveal the two men's odd destiny. Click for larger view View full resolution Adam Paolozza and Ravi Jain in $pent. (Photo: Elisa Gilmour.) In what the mock BBC newscasters termed "The Miracle on Bay Street," the men attempted suicide from a tower, only to find themselves transported to heaven, then to hell on the long journey down. From a hell that included quick-tongued serpents to a heaven that lent the men butterfly wings and was equipped with an imaginary ATM machine that spit money, the hilarious silent descent ultimately landed them safely on the ground, uninjured. From this moment on, the mock BBC newscasters became obsessed with the men, who are seen at first as a media sensation and then, following their even more miraculous ascent from ground to sky, as saviors of the economy. Throughout it all, Paolozza and Jain's precise and fluid mime and mimicry continued to delight the audience...

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