Robert Maloney and Dawn Petten from the Electric Company Theatre take a single audience member at a time through their piece called At Home with Dick and Jane.Simon Hayter for The Globe and Mail
Hive is a frantic marathon to see as much site-specific, envelope-pushing, experimental theatre as you can in a short window. And how often can you say that about a three-hour theatre experience? The shows often call for a high degree of audience participation - from an actor calling your cell phone for a chat that becomes public theatre to approaching a stranger in a bar with questions fed to you through a headset, to lying on an army cot imagining your own death. Afterward, there's live music and a chance to party with some great creative minds. We spotlight four pieces from opening night. (And we warn you, there are some spoilers here.)
At Home with Dick & Jane
Electric Company
This extraordinary experience begins with a send-up of self-important creative types discussing their craft. In a mock documentary, characters played by Kim Collier and Jonathan Young pontificate on film and theatre, and their competing Dick and Jane projects. (Hilarious lines include, "I didn't want Dick to be Dick as Dick.") Audience members are then escorted through a curtain, one by one, placed in a seat and instructed to look through a viewfinder, where a domestic Dick-and-Jane scenario plays out live, as in theatre, but is viewed through a lens, as in film. The only problem with this show is access: You need to win an on-site lottery to get a coveted ticket.
House/Home
Pi Theatre
Ah, love. Ah, domestic bliss. What becomes of it? In this dark, musical look at marriage in its not-so-early stages, a husband (Todd Thomson) and wife (Sasa Brown) perform a dance of dissatisfaction, up and down stairs, through windows, and in bathroom and tool-shed sanctuaries. He's the coolest guy in the office and she comes up with three different meals every day, but lying in bed at night, they are both tortured. "Do we have to do this for the rest of our lives?" she wonders. They are serenaded by a manly/womanly Jacqueline Breakwell and by the end of this show, they will each bare all in different ways.
Ana
November Theatre
A woman stands in the centre of a room, what could be the rec room of the house you grew up in, caressing a Stevie Wonder album. The woman (Carmen Aguirre) launches into a frankly sterile lecture on the merits of analog recording, but it turns into something powerful when we learn that her mother has just died, and that this album was an anniversary gift from her mother to her father, after they'd been dating for a month. When she turns down the lights and plays You Are the Sunshine of My Life, the poignancy is palpable. How can anyone not be thinking of love in their own lives - whether that be a lost mother or father, or a romance that was once so intense it merited a gift marking 30 days together?
Skunked
Felix Culpa
Seated on kiddie IKEA chairs, the audience is witness to a pig-tailed 12-year-old girl's bedroom scene: her books, her cheerful wallpaper, her teen heartthrob posters. But it becomes quickly apparent that this girl (Una Memisevic) has issues, as she tries to drown herself in a bowl of water. Her imaginary skunk friend (Quelemia Sparrow) may be part of the problem - or is she the solution? Along with a mysterious monster (Sebastian Kroon), the skunk is determined to turn things around for the tortured girl, but the girl's suicidal dissociation and the skunk's own relationship with the monster threaten to get in the way.
Hive 3 runs until March 20. For more information, visit buzzbuzzbuzz.ca.