Passing through this world of mundane emotion, we are seldom pushed to feel utterly disgusted, remarkably moved or delightfully enthralled. Yet, in the recesses of our minds, we quietly yearn for the passion, the inspiration, the revulsion that makes us feel alive.
We yearn, and a select few answer our desperate pleas, taking risks that seldom yield a respectable result.
Sean Bowie, director of Being at Home With Claude, is one of those risk-takers. Somewhere, sometime, something gave inside, causing him to break out of the acquiescence of his pathetically boring life. I remember talking to Bowie last year, when part of his job was to see all the theatre shows playing in Calgary. Of the 50-odd plays he saw he noted five were shit, another five amazing and the rest in the "fucking middle."
The fucking middle means middle-of-the-road, which endeavours to upset no one and satisfy everyone with something you’ll forget by the end of the day.
For the members of Blacklist Theatre satisfaction isn’t enough. Their current show, Being at Home with Claude, ventures into territory that isn’t even remotely satisfying to most.
The play is set in a lawyer’s stuffy office and based wholly on the dialogue between two characters for an 85-minute show with no intermission. To pull off something like this you need two things: a great script and great acting.
Blacklist found both.
Quebec playwright Rene-Daniel Dubois weaves an intricate play without stopping to pass judgment on his characters, allowing instead for the audience to condemn them for their despicable nature or, conversely, for simply being human. In a dialogue that both consumes and baffles, Dubois quickly pulls the audience into the scene.
Christian Goutsis, a Calgary theatre staple, plays Him, a male prostitute and murderer who is selfishly enclosed and devoid of conscience, turning himself in to the authorities in a perfectly despicable blackmail scheme.
Trevor Leigh plays a detective who has the task of interrogating Him in a smoky, dimly-lit room inside a courthouse during tumultuous 1967 Montreal–at the time of the World Expo, confederation centennial and Quebec’s separatist movement.
"They’re thoroughbreds," Bowie says of his actors. "The smartest thing I did was cast well."
Bowie is right. These two actors find intensity in the setting, the dialogue and the tension between themselves and the other characters. Their delivery doesn’t allow your mind to wander until well after the lights come up and you leave the theatre, reeling with despicable, passionate and raw human emotion.
Blacklist is mandated to provide superior acting and a vibrant, distinct, artistic theatre experience.
"Blacklist wants to do stuff that is artist-based, its mandate is to be challenging," explains Bowie. "I want to think that people want to be challenged."
In the endeavour to find challenging pieces every member of the Blacklist Theatre collective agree with, the six-year-old company only produces shows on a bi-annual basis, steering away from seasons while trying to cultivate a cult theatre following.
"We want to do two a year that are really cool," starts Bowie. "Once you get locked into seasons, you have to fill the gaps, you have obligations that we don’t want to have a part of.
"As an artist, I want to push people where they don’t want to go. Hate and love. Anytime you can make the audience feel either, that’s the whole point. Making people angry, scared, confused–whatever–it’s reflective."