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<b>by Sam Wills
David Mirvish and James Seabright, Panasonic Theatre, Toronto
October 2-19, 2014
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“Transformation through Imagination”
New Zealander Sam Wills does something to an audience of adults that few other performers can do – he makes them feel like kids again. He does so because he has not lost a childlike, and sometimes childish, view of the world and he has enough charisma to free his audience from the shackles of sensible behaviour to see that same world view. The Boy with Tape on His Face has won awards and played sold-out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe since it first appeared at the New Zealand International Comedy Festival in 2007.
Wills signifies to everyone that this will be silent comedy by the piece of duct tape across his mouth. But that tape not only covers up verbal language but the most expressive part of the human face. Wills therefore has to use not just his eyes to communicate to the audience but his whole body. He enters onto a stage empty except for a few cardboard boxes, a couple of chairs, a couple of stools and a yellow pedal trash can. Slung across his oversized jacket on his slim frame is a cloth shoulder-bag that, as we come to see, holds a seemingly inexhaustible number of props. He is basically like a kid in an attic who has to make all his toys out of the junk he finds around him. Indeed, the entire show is a celebration of the power of transformation through imagination.
Wills deftly combines the skills of clown, mime, improvisation and paper-folding although his medium of choice is masking tape rather than paper. Who but Wills could look at masking tape as material for a flower or a propeller? His rapid series of skits tend to follow a similar pattern. They are often so long in set-up that we struggle to imagine what effect he is trying to create, but once complete, the reveal is quick and over almost too soon. More often than not the set-up leads to a reveal involving a song played over the sound system. When Wills is on his own, what seems to be a random collection of objects suddenly solidifies into a puppet who sings the words to the song with a mouth made from a pair of shoes, an envelope or a computer mouse. When Wills chooses volunteers from the audience (and, be warned, he chooses lots of volunteers!), they will find themselves having to act out or react to the words of the song in ways they did not expect.
In one of the funniest skits, Wills takes a male volunteer on stage and indicates that he should put on overalls, a reflector vest and a construction hat. Wills leaves the man on stage while the lights change to pink and the music changes to bump-and-grind. What does the man do, with the cue from the music and the situation from <i>The Full Monty</i>, but take it off – luckily only the items Wills gave him – but who knows what happens other nights? The key to the humour is first, how easily Wills can communicate what he wants without words; second, the reveal after the preparation; and third, how readily seemingly ordinary folk get into play-acting when given a role and set up on stage.
In another highpoint of the show and one of its longest routines, Wills selects three men to come up on stage and tries to teach each of them a sequence of movements in monkey-see-monkey-do fashion. Wills’ nonverbal instructions are so clear it is hilarious how difficult it is for the three to imitate what he shows them, primarily because the moves require a sense of rhythm and, at least on opening night, the three white men selected lived up to their stereotype. It turns out the three are meant to be the backup dancers for a Michael Jackson song with Wills using found materials to create Michael Jackson. Wills is as mischievous as he is inventive and he readily mocks how badly his volunteers do which only increases the laughter.
We accept this mockery of others because Wills mocks himself on numerous occasions. Twice he sets himself a challenge of performing some stunt, say solving a Rubik’s cube, with suspense music playing, only to resort to cheating to succeed and pretending as if we didn’t notice.
Wills’ level of inventiveness is so high, you can’t help but be enthralled, while his wit is so quick he improvises just the right response to whatever goes badly or especially well on stage. Adults often lament the loss of imagination and sense of play that children have. The great pleasure of Wills’ show is to discover that neither has been has actually been lost. They have just been slumbering until the right circumstance, like this show, comes along to reawaken them.
<i>The Boy with Tape on His Face</i> can be seen either alone or as a package with<i> Julie Madly Deeply</i>. For a full schedule see <a href="http://www.mirvish.com/enews/2014/Edinburgh/edinburgh.html">www.mirvish.com/enews/2014/Edinburgh/edinburgh.html</a>.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This is a <i>Stage Door</i> exclusive.
Photo: Sam Wills. ©2010.
For tickets, visit <a href="http://www.mirvish.com">www.mirvish.com</a>.
<b>2014-10-03</b>
<b>The Boy with Tape on His Face</b>