The Happiest Medium » Boat Load

Boat Load – Come On Board (FRIGID New York 2011)

Geoffrey Paddy Johnson — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 23:49:20 +0000

Boatload (photo by Stars And Hearts)

In Boat Load the boat of the title is a metaphor representing the creative muse of Gary Bazman, an underachieving actor who has stayed too long in his small hometown. The load is the passenger list, a lifetime of Gary’s familiars – father, mother, girlfriend, professional contacts, friends, imaginary characters, even his cat, Mr. Tangerine. Gary, the boat, and its load, are all represented by writer/performer Jayson McDonald on a stage that is bare but for a single straight-backed chair. The ensuing hour of actorly tale telling will have your head spinning as you try to keep up with the action and not lose yourself in McDonald’s riveting performances.

As the action begins Gary’s metaphorical boat is heading for a metaphorical iceberg.

He is facing a dead end in a thus-far dead end career path. He sees himself cast in the role of a woodland fairy princess, as part of a lackluster children’s entertainment called “The Enchanted Forest of the Bears”. He is made to skip and lisp and wear fairy wings. Really, he was made for better things. His girlfriend is breaking up with him on account of multiple betrayals. And his only faithful ally, his cat, is critically ill. Enter the opportunity, finally, to get on in life in the form of a high-profile performance showcase. All he needs is $1000 to participate. But wouldn’t you know, that’s exactly how much it will cost for an operation to save Mr. Tangerine’s life? Exactly!

It’s a set-up that’s as admirable in its simplicity as is the form of presentation breathtakingly complex in the hands of performer McDonald and his director, Jeff Culbert. Their story zags and zigs (probably in that order) through a narrative about a narrator telling an autobiographical story that will be used by the narrator in the narrative proper. Follow? And the narrator, an actor, plays all the characters himself in the story, usually deploying a gentle satire that is inadvertently satirizing himself. It’s all fiendishly clever, and that might well be enough, but it’s put across in a performance that’s as perfectly pitched as it is comically adroit. McDonald takes on at least ten roles in the telling. It unfolds at a cracking pace, though the performer has fun speeding up and slowing down the scenes as he pleases. Somehow he discovers time for imaginary flights of fancy, audience interaction, in-coming meta-narrative cell phone calls, and a guided tour of Gary’s small hometown, itself a potted biography and a forlorn note on small town decay.

McDonald’s miming of stage props – doors, drinks, packing-tape – is as physically convincing as is the arch implication that such incidents of actorly illusionism are pedantic and smug. He throws them to us with a moue of disdain and lazily self-generated sound effects (“click”, “snip”). Monologue too, you know, can be tedious and self-important he suggests (witness the impatient speed-up and slow-down of pace), never more obviously when, as contrast, he offers us, for minutes on end, the silent facial responses of one character to another’s unheard speech. Soundlessly we absorb all the information we require of the speaker in this brief, exceptional display. Our impatiences with theatrical convention are his impatiences with theatrical convention. He knows because he has to write the stuff, and deliver the stuff. But, he has a tale to tell, so…

It might all become a snide and brilliant insider joke if McDonald wasn’t so marvelously adept at conjuring feeling and life in the characters, comical and flawed as they are. His characterization of Gary’s depressed and emotionally remote mother, elsewhere dismissed to comic effect as “the Black Cloud”, is genuinely haunting as she dazedly collages feminine hygiene and healthcare packagings to create a portrait. “See, the pill is the head.” His mother recounts a recurring dream where she is treading water in a vast ocean and is visited by a passing cruise ship. Her family, friends, and doctor are all there on board, but not, as she hopes, to rescue her; merely to say hi as they pass by. Gary is not the only one with a metaphorical cruise ship operating in his imagination.

Will Gary somehow make the $1000 he needs from his shoestring existence? Will his showcase audition be accepted if he does? Will he get back with his girlfriend? Will Mr. Tangerine perish, and in so doing, teach Gary a valuable lesson? McDonald will let you know in his own unique way, and at the same time let you know what he thinks of neatly played out conclusions. The final scene sees the action slow to a natural pace, very natural. And after all the comical skewering and witty banter, we are left with an image that could not be more simple and casually heartfelt.

McDonald is a seasoned performer and writer with a string of accolades behind him in his native Canada, where he is well known on the festival circuit. His Boat Load is a mature and complex piece of comical theater, enacted by a performer at the top of his craft. Any one who enjoys comedy or theater will be absorbed and laugh. If you could purchase just one ticket in this year’s Frigid Festival season, you could not do better than this one. Go.

~~~

Boat Load

Presented by Stars and Hearts London, ON Canada

The Red Room (85 East 4th Street) $14

Fri 2/25 @ 6:30pm, Sat 2/26 @ 3:30pm, Mon 2/28 @ 8pm, Fri 3/4 @ 9:30pm, Sat 3/5 @ 11pm, & Sun 3/6 @ 3:30pm

FRIGID 2011 will run February 23-March 6 at The Kraine Theater & The Red Room (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Ave and Bowery) and UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place between 1sr Ave and Ave A). Tickets ($10-$16) may be purchased online at www.FRIGIDnewyork.info or by calling Smarttix at 212-868-4444. All shows will run 60 minutes long or less.

FRIGID New York Festival 2011 – Five Questions For: Boat Load

Karen Tortora-Lee — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 04:09:59 +0000

Welcome back to another installment of FRIGID New York Festival 2011 Q&A! We’ll be running these throughout February, so be sure to check back to read all about the great shows that will be taking part in the festival. Also – don’t miss the winner-take-all game of Rock Paper Scissors! Today’s Q&A is with Jayson McDonald, Writer/Performer of Boat Load.

Gary is a brilliant actor who needs a thousand dollars to participate in a high-profile performer showcase. Also, his cat needs a thousand dollar operation, but that’s too much money to spend on a cat.

answers by Jayson McDonald, Writer/Performer

Antonio Asks: What makes FRIGID such a warm and welcoming experience for your production?

FRIGID is run by a very lovely group of people who go out of their way to make sure you have a good time, and that your show runs as smoothly as possible. It’s a smaller festival, so every performing company has a chance to shine. And The East Village is my favourite part of the island, it has a great neighbourhood feel. You get to feel connected to the community with FRIGID, like you’re contributing something valuable.

Diánna Asks: What about this play do you feel most drawn to personally, and because of that, what message do you hope the audience walks away with?

I wrote this piece at a time when I was feeling very uninspired. Living and working for a very long time in a relatively small town, feeling insulated and unappreciated, I started to withdraw from my peers. I turned into a complaining bitch, jaded, boring and absolutely no fun to be around. Then one day I realized the reason I wasn’t getting anything out of my life is because I wasn’t putting much into it. It hit my like a fist to the face (which hurt my nose more than my pride, actually). So I started writing Boat Load to make better sense of what was happening and to describe the rewards of the inevitable introspection that I’d backed myself into. In the end, the show is about taking responsibility for your own happiness, appreciating what you have, waking up to the beauty that’s already in your life. I’m hoping the audience will see some of their own blocks and outdated programming in the protagonist, and be buoyed by the fact that at some point at least, everybody is their own worst enemy.

Karen Asks: That’s some title. How did you come up with it – and what does it mean?
Gary, my protagonist, describes his creative muse as a cruise ship piloted by a drunken captain who doesn’t know where he’s going. The boat is full of Gary’s friends, family, and contemporaries. The structure of the piece is a bit meta-fiction – the show turns in on itself, revealing itself to itself now and again – and the title is meant to illustrate the boatload of characters, themes and metaphors that Gary uses to tell his tale.

Stephen Asks: You must have a favorite part of your show. What makes it your favorite?

That’s a very difficult question! I enjoy performing every bit of this show – it never gets tired for me. The characters are all so much fun to play, all based on archetypes or amalgamations of people in my own life…but after having played them so many times, they have developed lives of their own. Sometimes they surprise me by doing something or saying something new in performance (that sounds crazy, doesn’t it). I think my favourite part of this show is its continuing development.

Lina Asks: How much of your show was inspired by true events?
Ehrm…this and that. There are tiny little bits of me throughout, but the show itself is total fiction.

THM Bonus Question: If you could play a virtual game of Rock, Paper, Scissors with another FRIGID Show which show would you take on? And what would you throw?

How dare you, The Happiest Medium. How dare you pit us all against one another in a deadly contest of wills, where the victor is crowned with eternal glory and the losers are unceremoniously dumped into a watery grave. I’m gonna be a gentleman and throw Tired Wave Stop a life preserver.

Thanks Boat Load - for participating in The Happiest Medium’s FRIGID New York Festival 2011 Q&A. And for damning me in public about pitting you all against each other in this Tournament of (mwah-hah-hah) Death. You’re absolutely right. I’ve been treating it like my own personal Thunderdome. Oh, wow. I see now. I see so very clearly now. I hang my head in shame. Still, officially I have to call the ref in on this one. I’ll get back to you.

This is how it works in the crazy world of the VIRTUAL ROCK PAPER SCISSORS TOURNAMENT!

Meanwhile, for the rest of you – don’t forget to check out Boat Load!