hesketh

In The Chamber

Maybe it was the giant red and yellow antibiotic dissolving in my stomach or maybe it was the residual fever still pumping through my body but I think even in the most perfect health a Friday night spent "In The Chamber" just wasn’t going to be my cup of tea.

This year is the fifth installment in the edgy series and features two well performed but preachy performances by Gordon Tanner and Steven Ratzlaff. Both Tanner and Ratzlaff wrote and acted in their individual pieces and while there performances dragged on, the passion both felt for their labor of love remained obvious throughout both performances.

The first monologue was "Last Man in Universe Alpha - 11," an hour long rant against factory farming punctuated with inside jokes and a slide show featuring photographs of fire charred pig carcasses. I’ve been a vegan, a vegetarian and a piscetarian but even the animal rights activist in me felt that the performance had more than a sprinkling of PETA fueled rage coating it.

The second performance “Last Man in Puntarenas" was drier and slide show free but equally long winded. As much as I tried to follow Ratzlaff’s characters retirement speech about the flaws in Canada’s health care system and his own marriage follies I found my eye lids drooping with fatigue long before he reached the end of his speech.

Walking out of the Rachel Browne theatre I didn’t feel uplifted by new knowledge or inspired by the actors passion for their craft. Simply put, "In The Chamber" was a play that I just didn't like very much.