Review by Christine Burton
60mins/Comedy-Drama/PG
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more hapless gaggle of losers than Dick, Ricky and Paco, some of the characters in Paco V Put to Sleep. All of them are lurching towards a Darwin Award-winning future – either that, or an Oscar for best comedic facial expressions (Dicky Dick, I’m talking to you…).
When the show started, I thought it was going to be an indictment of the ‘entitlement’ mentality some view as endemic in the millennial generation, but it soon became clear that age was no antidote to self-absorption or bad judgement. I spent the show vacillating between wanting to throttle the characters for their passivity and laughing out loud – the dialogue is crisp and believable and incredibly well acted. The play is put on by Ottawa’s own/Gladstone Theatre’s resident troupe and Fringe veterans, Black Sheep Theatre. I’ve already mentioned Dicky’s expressiveness; Ricky T-Bone was so convincing in character that when the actor – Tim Oberholzer – spoke to the audience after the show ended, I could hardly believe it was the same person. Mr. Dick could teach the ubiquitous dim-wit TV fathers a lesson in bringing new dimensions to the stereotype.
Although just the usual Fringe-length 60 minute production, this play was a coherent whole, although (like the clueless characters on stage) I usually had no idea what was happening. I just seemed to care more than the characters themselves, who viewed every event as potential entertainment… oh dear, was that meant as a statement on the role of the audience? I hope I’m not quite so vacuous an observer. This play is far more than mind-candy (which I love, don’t get me wrong), but is instead an object lesson; one that shows us that western culture echoes the rise and fall of the Roman Empire far too closely. Give the people bread and circuses – or ice cream and circuses in this case – and the world can disintegrate around them, without anyone taking action to stop it. Can you say economic meltdown of 2008?
This is exactly the kind of excellent work one hopes to discover at the Fringe. Highly recommended.
Paco V Put to Sleep by Martin Dockery at Venue 2 – Arts Court Theatre, Saturday June 21 (23h),Sunday June 22 (17:30), Tuesday June 24 (19:30), Friday, June 27 (21h) and Sunday June 29 (16h). Tickets are $10.
