reviewvancouver: Except in an Unlikely Event of War

Pi Theatre and Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Theatre
Except in the Unlikely Event of War by Sean Devine

Dates and Venue 15 - 30 November 2013, 8pm | Roundhouse Community Centre, Yaletown

Reviewer Ed Farolan

Ever since Pirandello came up with his controversial Six Characters in Search of an Author, which was greeted with "Manicomio" when it first opened in Rome in 1921, many authors like Devine have followed in these footsteps. The 21st century Pirandellian approach in this production uses what is common these days: multi-media. Here we see flashed on screen videos showing the actors playing themselves, and then shifting to different roles in the play, as they debate offstage with a camera constantly filming them.

It's an interesting approach, very avant-garde, and the actors (Robert Moloney, Josette Jorge, Sean Devine, Lucia Frangione, Richard Wolfe) delivered to the satisfaction of the opening night audience. The technical aspects were also well-designed and excellently executed.

Devine's play is based partly on Report from Iron Mountain, by Leonard C. Lewin, published in 1967, about a Special Study Group of fifteen men whose identities were to remain secret and not intended to be made public. It details the analyses of a government panel which concludes that war, or a credible substitute for war, is necessary if governments are to maintain power.

With wikileaks and Snowden on the run, this play gives us insights into what's happening currently, and all this hush-hush of Obama and Harper, phone-tapping and all, gives us an idea how government manipulates and puts you in the blacklist. In this play, the government has withdrawn funds from this theatre company because of the "subversive" nature of the production, and actors' paychecks have bounced.

Devine adds a Canadian perspective as he juxtaposes the 1965 secret meeting with the 2015 Harper campaign, but still maintaining the whole "wikileak" theme. In his notes, Devine says that he was angered by an article in Globe and Mail, "Stephen Harper - the last Straussian" . Strauss, a neo-conservative University of Chicago professor in the mid-60s, endorsed the ideology that the masses have to be fed "noble lies" in order to maintain "social harmony". "It's all about control," says Devine. "There's a clear and direct link between the dangerous political philosophies of the Straussians and the upper cadre of the Harper government."

So perhaps it's time to elect Trudeau and the liberals despite the Conservative radio ads we hear over and over saying that Trudeau is inexperienced and cannot run a government.