Reviews 2011
Reviews 2011
✭✭✭✩✩
by Rick Miller & Daniel Brooks, directed by Rick Miller & Daniel Brooks
Wyrd Productions & Necessary Angel, Factory Theatre Mainspace, Toronto
October 13-23, 2011
“Still a Hard Sell”
Rick Miller’s HARDSELL 2.0 is a completely rethought and rewritten version of his 2009 show HARDSELL co-created with Daniel Brooks. The new show is still a stinging critique of the commodification of everything and the literally mind-numbing influence of advertising, but the emphasis on metatheatricality, likely from Daniel Brooks, has been tamped down and placed instead squarely on Miller as an arts worker, parent and human being trying to live a virtuous life. The previous version was laboured, arch and ultimately tedious. This version is an improvement and counters the first two criticisms with simple sincerity. As a piece of theatre it is still problematic and from the fairly ramshackle performance on opening night, it seems still to be a work in progress.
The earlier version of HARDSELL posited that Rick Miller (playing himself) had an evil twin named Archie (also Miller). Rick Miller represented an attempt to maintain idealism in a craven world whereas Archie represented pure cynicism. Since Archie’s cynicism extended even to the theatre itself and its audience, the play moved from being not simply unfunny to so unpleasant you wondered why you had bothered to go out.
HARDSELL 2.0 is a much more enjoyable experience. In his own words, Miller told director Daniel Brooks that he want to “take full control” of the play since the play itself is about the individual’s attempt to take back control in a world constantly being bought and sold by others. Now Miller is now listed as a co-director and co-designer. Unlike the clean beauty of Ben Chaisson and Beth Kates’s set for the earlier HARDSELL and their gorgeous projected images so at odds with the Archie’s negative world view, the set for HARDSELL 2.0 looks like the junk-filled chaos one might expect in a basement den. Though there are still innumerable projections, sound and lighting cues, the overall feel is low-tech and personal instead of high-tech and impersonal.
The show has a clear two-part structure. It’s now called a “lecture/performance” and that’s exactly what it is. The first half is an undisguised lecture by Miller directly to the audience. The second half is a variety act by the evil twin Archie. While this structure now allows Miller to make the motivations behind the show absolutely clear, it also means that in the space of only 90 minutes, Miller proceeds to say the same thing twice albeit in different modes of presentation.
In the first half Miller as himself delivers a lecture about the background of the show and its initial impetus--the fact that corporations, not people or governments, now control the world and dictate the agenda for what is done and thought. Miller feels sure that this complete undermining of democracy will lead to revolution. Miller deliberately want to lay himself bare. He shows how he has tried to live and work ethically but how he has had to make compromises. BMO his personal bank and sponsor claims to make an effort to be green, but as he demonstrates, its efforts are minimal and so are those of the other three major Canadian banks. He drives a hybrid but he still buys gas from a company known for having caused environmental damage. He has ceased making commercials, but he once hosted the TV series Just for Laughs, broadcast in the US by ABC, owned by Disney, whose practices and policies he despises. In this way, he details how an individual can try to behave as ethically as possible even though corporations and their philosophy of selfishness pervade every aspect of our lives. Corporate “sell” like a cancer “cell” has no other purpose but replication and domination.
With the close of this lecture, the show might as well end. It’s a fine, sincere speech, backed up with research and leavened with humour, that makes several important points clearly and carefully. Yet, Miller feels the need also to give us a performance and so changes, rather too laboriously, into the character of Archie, who still looks like a white-faced Cirque du Soleil clown with the voice and mannerisms of George Burns. Unlike Cirque du Soleil, however, the rambling vaudeville act that follows has no internal narrative. Miller simply uses he abundant talents of singing, dancing, physical comedy, impersonation and puppetry to iterate points Miller had already made in his lecture.
Archie’s acts are a mix of good and not so good. The best is Archie’s impersonation of Morgan Freeman using his measured, authoritative voice to advertise himself for use in voiceovers because of his measured, authoritative voice. The interview with a line-up of Barbie dolls is also funny but why one of them should be nuked in a microwave to no purpose is unclear. Not so good is Archie’s potty-humour parody of Joseph Campbell and his book Hero with a Thousand Feces [sic]. Following Archie’s performance, Miller steps forward again as himself to offer an epilogue urging the audience to avoid cynicism since it is just too easy and is unproductive and to try to maintain a sense of purpose and idealism not just for our own sake but to help guide the next generation.
No one can doubt the sincerity of Miller’s plea, but the divided evening of a lecture and performance, one of which obviates the need for the other, does not constitute a satisfying evening. It is inherently undramatic and repeats itself rather than builds thematically. There are two possible ways to combine the two sections and create dramatic tension. One way would be to have Miller present his lecture but have Archie attempt to undermine Miller’s message of idealism. Miller already gives signs of this by recurring to Archie’s voice during the lecture whenever a cynical point was made. Miller has shown he can play over 50 characters in MacHomer without change of makeup or costume, why not present a psychomachia between Miller and Archie in the same way. Unlike the original HARDSELL, this time Miller could still win, but at least there would be a struggle between the two responses--cynical and idealistic--to the unfriendly world we inhabit.
The second method would be to take a page from the Colbert Report or Wallace Shawn’s play Aunt Dan and Lemon (1985) and only present Archie’s view of the world but in such a way that opposite point of view of the author/performer is so clearly implied that it need not spoken outright. This would require that Archie’s vaudeville act manifest some sort of narrative or thematic structure. Miller was able to make the disparate elements of Bigger Than Jesus work together using the Catholic mass as a guide. No doubt he could find some appropriate subterranean structure for Archie’s performance.
In its present state HARDSELL 2.0 would likely have a good reception on college campuses or anywhere that it could preach to the converted. To find a wider, more lasting success, Miller will have to take the show to the next, more integrated level in HARDSELL 3.0. Patrons should know that as a demonstration of the strength of his beliefs, all proceeds from HARDSELL 2.0 will go to the “Because I Am a Girl” campaign (http://becauseiamagirl.ca) that helps girls and women in the developing world to claim a brighter future.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Rick Miller. ©2011 Michael Cooper.
For tickets, visit www.factorytheatre.ca.
2011-10-14
HARDSELL 2.0