I Would Prefer Not To

Postcard Review by Caroline Russell-King

Show – I Would Prefer Not To

Playwright/s/Composer/s – co-created by David Gagnon Walker and Tori Morrison.

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

Length – 1 Act, 1 hour 25 minutes (no intermission.)

Genre – Storytelling

Premise – A man tells us about his depressive episodes, and a woman tells a story of a lawyer who hires a man suffering from mental health issues.

Why this play? Why now? – It is in step with issues involving mental unwellness and narcissism. The program states that the performance asks the question “How do you keep going when the song won’t end?” I don’t have the answer, but several people checked their watch.

Curiosities – What is the criteria by which Rodeo participan

ts are chosen? What was this material like before it was dramaturged?

Notable Moment – The movement of the doll/puppet at his desk with his quill.

Notable writing – The man’s monologue has the artist structure of a journal entry, a psychiatrist’s office diatribe, or the social unaware man in the bar. Genetically predisposed to mental illness, the teenager slips into emotional dysregulation after his parents give him a computer in his bedroom. The late-night surfing which includes porn sites leads to the teenager’s insomnia then to a full-blown metal breakdown. The man also sings two songs with his guitar. The woman tells the story of a 19^th century lawyer circa who speaks with the affect of a millennial in 2025. The lawyer is strangely inept at helping his employee who becomes homeless and dies in jail. Whether this story is in response to the man’s illness we aren’t sure. If one of the measures of success is for the experience to transmit some sort of emotion to the audience, I certainly left feeling depressed.

Notable performances – Walker delivers the autobiographical material flatly, but slips into a more manic energy when singing. Morrison uses the little articulated stringless marionette as a prop rather than animating him, delivering the story like a librarian reading to children.

Notable design/Production – The costumes look just like what the performers would wear in their day to day lives with the exception of a top hat which the woman wears making her look like Slash’s grandchild.

Notable direction – Director Christian Barry took a hands-off approach to the material.

One reason to see this show – Normally I urge people to see live theatre; here I would prefer…