Day Player Machine

Postcard review by Caroline Russell-King

Show – Day Player Machine

Playwright – Tom Scholte

Production Company/Theatre space – One Yellow Rabbit, High Performance Rodeo, with An Influence B Production in the Big Secret, Theatre, Arts Commons.

Length – 1 ACT (90 minutes)

Genre/s – Drama or tragedy depending on your POV.

Premise – Wanting to be a famous Canadian movie star and have sex with a celebrity, this man gets neither by blaming his looks, teacher, agent, society, upbringing, and mental health while convincing us he is okay being a repairman while (ironically) performing his one man show.

Why this play? Why now? – At a time when a Dunning-Kruger afflicted felon and rapist is elected to President, narcissism is a hot topic. The reason eludes me as to why this was chosen from the thousands of scripts that get written each day.

Curiosities – I wondered if this performance was better suited in the adjacent bar where actors often go to lament their lot in the industry.

Notable Moment – Since I was sitting in the front row, the most interesting part of the show was, when having a sudden mental break, he felt compelled to take out his genitals and urinate over the front row of an audience followed by “stick his cock into everyone’s drink”. (I mused how dramatic, harrowing, and memorably this would have been in avant-garde 1960 European theatres with waivers and a splash zone.)

Notable writing – The Canadian screenwriter autobiographical diatribe intersperses the scenes from boy to man by using cinematic terms such as “close up on” or “smash cut to”. However, this isn’t intro to films this man has created. Having told us he was diagnosed with OCD and being hospitalized for an unspecified breakdown, he recreates his father at his bedside breaking down with guilt-ridden apology for bad parenting and abandoning him as a boy. This may be cathartic for the performer, but does little for the audience.

Notable performances – Stanislavsky said “love the art in yourself not yourself in the art”; sadly this is lost here. Still, it takes some pluck to be an unlikeable anti-hero.

Notable design/Production – Since the costume and set piece dictated the beginning and end of the play, it takes away from any possibility of a successful outcome.

Notable direction – The program says this, “… is a darkly funny ride through the imploding psyche of a Candain film actor who thinks he might be an android in a simulated reality.” This wasn’t apparent or theatrically explored in direction.

One reason to see this show – If you want an answer as to why some Canadian artists aren’t successful, this show is for you.