Bloodlust Summer-Time

Postcard Review by Caroline Russell-King

Show – Bloodlust Summer-Time

Playwright/s/Composer/s. Writer – Shenoah Allen

Production Company/Theatre space – One Yellow Rabbit’s High Performance Rodeo / Heather Edwards Theatre, Contemporary Calgary.

Length – 65 minutes

Genre – Storytelling Stand-Up

Premise – Allen recounts personal stories from his family including drugs, guns, and murder, sometimes impersonating his male relatives.

Why this play? Why now? – Not a play but it reminds us the American psyche is different from the Canadian one.

Curiosities – Not a curiosity, but I marveled for the umpteenth time about the role of guns in American culture.

Notable Moment – The image of him dressed as a goth in the back of a car “showing not pointing” a gun at guys that were making fun of their get up.

Notable writing – The piece I think is meant to be stand-up, but it doesn’t have the rhythms of a stand-up piece. Joke laugh, joke, laugh… Allen starts of doing Spanish and English accents which we think is going to be woven into the bit with other characters but no. The beginning, he tells us, is him being sent by his psychiatrist to delve into the darker parts of his past. The highlights of these stories comprise his using and selling LSD to 12-year-olds as a kid, one family member killing the woman he is taking care of and another relative that straight up shoots a man in the face because he annoyed him. This could be the makings of a fantastic Sam Shepherd play but alas this is devoid of stakes because it’s a “tell” and not a “show”. It ends up being salacious information that one might read in the National Enquirer at the checkout.

Notable performances – Allen is a likeable enough guy who tells us he has given up drugs (except his meds), booze, and bread. Ba dum bump. Still, he comes across as ‘the guy in the bar who knows how to hold court and spin a story.’

Notable design/Production – There are short audio clips of family members talking, inexplicable sound effects of his father’s footsteps on gravel, and a chorus of cicadas.

Notable direction – n/a

One reason to see this show – A lighter look at family dysfunction.