Slaughterhouse-Five or: The Children's Crusade

Photo/Donata Zanotti

Watching Godlight Theatre Company's production of Slaughterhouse-Five or: The Children's Crusade didn't make me feel unstuck in time so much as stuck in a theater. The adaptation, by Eric Simonson, is a good one, but Joe Tantalo's claustrophobic direction relies too heavily on the audience being avid fans of Kurt Vonnegut. The play opens, as we shuffle in, with Man (Ashton Crosby), standing over a drain flecked with dried blood, a giant cross of metal hooks, dog tags, and helmets hovering ominously above him. The cast waits visibly in the "wings" of the studio, backs to us, equally frozen in time. The actors look amateurish, and the setting is trivialized by the space -- an audience stepping gingerly over blood to get to their seats -- and what was so forceful on the page becomes remarkably gauche. "Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds," says Man, awkwardly doing his best to ignore the audience. And then: an electric throb of piano, a rotting sound effect and a spotlight meant to signal a "time shift." (In case you missed it, the next three characters to speak will stress that Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time.)

We don't get to hear the next lines from the book ("And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like ‘Poo-tee-weet?’”); instead, we get brief glimpses of Boy Billy (Darren Curley), being "taught" to swim by his Dad; a more coherent view of Young Billy (Dustin Olson) passively passing through World War II, from the the trenches to the POW camps in soon-to-be-fire-bombed Dresden; and the main narrative of Billy (Gregory Konow), whose big smile and endearing personality are enough not only to make us believe in his temporal condition and alien abduction, but in the show itself.

Now, if you haven't judged this book by its cover, the play begins to work. Violent cartoons like Roland ("You ever heard of the Iron Maiden") Weary and Paul ("I'll kill you") Lazzaro are done justice by the ensemble, their comic sneers an unsettling match for their subject matter, and cryptic characters like Kilgore Trout have thick layers of pain under their jovial smiles. The play constantly breaks its momentum with the "time shift," but it always picks up speed again, with characters sometimes literally spinning from one scene and role into another. Deanna McGovern, who plays all the female parts, does a good job -- intentionally or not -- of bleeding some of her physical traits from character to character, which blurs the lines further between times, though not ever enough for us to lose ourselves in the absurdity. The closest we get is with the excellent portrayal of the alien Tralfamadorians, palm-flashlights strapped to the actors wave like palm fronds in the night.

At best, the show comes off in a rapture of helpless glee, the sort found most often on the bearded face of Mr. Konow, who smilingly engages with the audience. At worst, the show remains as unbalanced as Mr. Crosby, who coldly lectures to the thin air. The play doesn't have to make sense (and without props, it won't to those who haven't read the book), but it does need to connect with the audience, otherwise the satire is simply clowning, and the big tragedies of war (and the small daily happinesses of life) come off as weird aliens in the night.

PLAY: "Humans Anonymous"

Since the characters of Humans Anonymous spend so much time sharing their innermost fears with the audience (from foghorns to death, centipedes to not being liked), I'll add one of mine: I'm always afraid that the show I'm attending is going to be horrible, and that I won't be able to find anything positive to say about it. Well, while the sexy but insecure hero, Ellen, has to open the show with a false smile, nodding and holding herself as if she can simultaneously fit in and stand out, I don't need to be false at all: Kate Hewlett's written a wonderful comedy that zips through overtly comic scenes while remaining anchored to a real human connection.

Here, that connection comes via the Internet: Ellen has fallen for her soul mate, SmartyPants17, and at long last, she's going to get to meet him, the man of her dreams. Unfortunately for her, that happens to be a woman, not Lenny, but Jenny, a young, adorably persistent klutz with a penchant for typos. Worse still, Ellen's homophobic, and while she's businesslike enough to grin and bear her way through the date, she's got no interest in seeing the smitten Jenny ever again. That's where the matchmaker of this comedy enters: Ellen's sly and sagacious employee, Peter (who is also, tellingly, her gay best friend), accidentally glimpses that first date and starts pulling strings to make Ellen happy, whatever it takes. Peter and Jenny become fast friends, and it isn't long before Ellen's fallen for "A" (for Anonymous), a gift-giving secret admirer born of Jenny's heart and Peter's playful scheming.

Here's where the play gets more complicated: Ellen becomes convinced (painting the picture she wants to see, rather than looking for the riddle she needs) that "A" is Arden, an overwhelmingly shy UHB ("You Handsome Brute") who stammers his way from his seat in the audience into our hearts. Arden we can handle, even if his antics are a little thematically distracting, but Hewlett starts interjecting too much of herself when she joins the cast as Gema, Peter's socially awkward sister. None of this stops the play from being funny, but it starts to push the jokes ("Can I come out now?" says Peter; "Didn't you do that once already?" Ellen rejoins). I never saw the hour-long "Best of the Fringe" version when it played in Toronto (2006), but it's not hard to tell when Hewlett is writing for an audience instead of her characters.

To stress again, however, none of this stops Humans Anonymous from being wholly enjoyable. Robin A. Paterson's direction is engaging (directly so when Dustin Olson's amidst the crowd), and with the exception of an unnecessary intermission, the play segues well from scene to scene. All three leads (Esther Barlow, Jennifer Laine Williams, and Philip Graeme) have excellent chemistry, and they each find the nuances of their characters: with Barlow, it's the cracked smile, growing more and more genuine with every gift; with Williams, it's the sense of purpose and general cheeriness; and with Graeme, it's the dry amusement that serves to mask his genuine concern. While Hewlett and Olson both put in admirable performances, the play itself would be better served to keep the focus on the actual story: that would tighten the jokes, the pace, and with those, the show.

Don't be a stranger to Humans Anonymous, go and check it out. We're all a little bit lonely, a little bit insecure: this show's for you.