This is a review from a Fringe Festival offering this past September 2010 (thanks to Intrepid Theatre!). While, we’ve taken down most of the other reviews from that Festival in the interest of keeping our site up to date, I’ve decided to replace this one because it is just so poignant. It is written by Victoria resident, Brad Cunningham and he has graciously allowed us to reprint it here for you for as long as we want to–it is so meaningful to me, that I reread it often.

I hope you enjoy it:
About 40 of us filled the front part of the St. Ann’s Academy theatre to take in the opening night of Gunpowder, by Jayson McDonald of London, ON.  The show is billed as “A Solo Whodunnit”, so I had an idea of what to expect but I didn’t quite get what I expected.

While Gunpowder is a comedy (and a good one at that, with equal parts physical comedy, witty word play, and awkward humour), humour is often a gateway for the exploration of more serious themes.  I am a sucker for any writing that plays with structure (such as the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer for one example), and Gunpowder’s constant playing with the fourth wall and winks to the audience engaged me early on and had me questioning the true theme of the play throughout the performance. From very early on we see self-awareness in McDonald’s character Tom Phox, of his being on stage and in a theatre in front of people watching his every move.  This narrative structure was cleverly weaved into the fabric of the play, so that while watching the play I enjoyed the banter with the audience.  However, upon reflection, what it really made me consider was what it must be like to be that performer, on stage, in a theatre, with people watching your ev
ery move.  The way that Fringe performers live throughout their summer seaons, putting themselves on display for all to see and evaluate, in the most intimate of ways – alone on stage – must be an emotionally exhausting way to make a living. Make no mistake, this is something that the actors choose to do – no one has ever just woken up in the middle of the stage to see people awaiting a performance  - but the idea of not only being on display, but having to entertain, with material that, for the most part, they have written, is frightening to me.  While the moments of self-realization within the play were very comedic, I wonder how much of it speaks the truth of what the performers experience in their professional lives.  The obvious jump is to recognize that to some degree we are all on display everyday and in so much that “all the men and women merely players”, we are not really, not in the same way.  I am conscious of people observing me as we walk past each other, but th
ere is little reflection upon that moment by either party.  However, in the life of the performer, every person who viewed them is going to be making comment and, usually, passing a judgment as to whether or not that performer gave them value for their money.  Again, between good laughs, McDonald’s writing afforded me that small glimpse of about what his summer existence must really be like and he makes me aware that I really have no idea how difficult it is to put oneself on display like that, night after night, city after city.  I expect to laugh when I go to see a comedy, and I laughed out loud many times, but, what I didn’t expect was for this comedy to leave me with some deeper understanding, or at least questioning, of what it must be like for others in my community.  Good comedies do that.  Gunpowder did that.