Reviews 2007
Reviews 2007
✭✭✭✭✩
created by Serge Deslauriers, Raynald Michaud and Énock Turcotte, directed by Reynald Michaud
Jeffrey Latimer Entertainment, Diesel Playhouse, Toronto
January 23-February 18, 2007
From Quebec, hothouse of boundary-breaking spectacles, comes Cabaret U-Mano, an amusing, highly imaginative puppet show for adults. Though modelled after drag shows, here the 29 puppets ranging from small to life-size do not exclusively represent females or even human beings. Manipulated bunraku-style by fully visible puppeteers, these bizarre, inspired creations designed by Serge Deslauriers lip synch to 26 songs ranging from jazz and blues to Broadway and disco. It’s like watching a nightclub revue in Star Wars’ Mos Eisley Cantina.
While the serious songs aren’t as inventive as the hilarious, sexually charged numbers, all can be enjoyed purely as entertainment. Yet, theatre buffs will find that the best skits question notions of identity, sexual objectification and the nature of actor and persona. In a duet between a sheep and a wolf, the puppets turn their attentions from each other to ravish their puppeteers. During “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” a grotesque puppet dominatrix abuses her paradoxically submissive manipulators. Puppets from the waist up often cavort on the legs of human dancer Énock Turcotte, who, at one point is fully transformed into a living automaton. In a brilliant climax, a puppet striptease moves beyond the mere removal of clothing to reveal the human hands that give it life. This is a rare show that tickles the brain as well as the senses.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2007-02-01.
Photo: The Slinky Sisters. ©Réalisations.net.
2007-02-01
Cabaret U-Mano