REVIEW: Erased at TPM sends its greetings from a precarious future
iPhoto caption: Photo by Henry Chan.
There’s a quotable zinger you may have heard, sometimes attributed to Fredric Jameson and/or Slavoj Žižek, but most famously marshalled by political theorist Mark Fisher in his 2009 book Capitalist Realism: “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.”
It’s no surprise that playwright and director Coleen Shirin MacPherson cites Fisher’s work as an influence for her new play Erased, co-produced by Open Heart Surgery Theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille. But when it comes to the oppositional struggle between envisioning either an apocalypse or a new socioeconomic paradigm, MacPherson seemingly follows the Solomonic wisdom of a young taco enthusiast by responding, “why not both?”
Set in the not-too-distant-yet-evidently-past-the-ecological-point-of-no-return future, Erased introduces the audience to Margie (Nancy McAlear), Grace (Sochi Fried), and René (Kat Khan), three live-in employees at a dingy greeting card factory. They toil all day at a manually operated conveyor belt, under harsh fluorescents and a surveillance camera’s threatening scrutiny (set and lighting by Nick Blais).
These workers are soon joined by new recruit Oliver (Rose Tuong), who slyly quotes radical feminist authors and attempts to sow seeds of discord, aided in spirit by a voiceless seven-member chorus. This Dionysian mass is referred to as “the Disappeared,” invoking real-world political violence that’s frequently employed by authoritarian regimes to suppress dissent. These spectral figures reappear to leave their mark on the factory floor, communicating only through stylized movement sequences that are simultaneously ethereal and punk-rock (movement direction is by Alix Sideris, with contributions from Ericka Leobrera).
Despite the main characters needing to meet intense productivity quotas against life-or-death stakes, there’s a lingering sense that their labour is all for naught. The entire enterprise is ultimately framed as little more than a bullshit job — to borrow an idiom from another trendy political theorist who left this world too soon. The factory’s material output is revealed to be utterly inconsequential, with its true function being the disciplined maintenance of capitalist hegemony.
And yet, while MacPherson could have chosen virtually any commodity to embody that output, her decision to centre the plot around greeting card production is one that playfully coaxes the audience to put on their thinking caps and have a good ponder about what it might mean.
Greeting cards appear to have little use in a world so plainly teetering on the brink of collapse. Despite whatever sentimental value they carry, we’re all intimately familiar with how they eventually end up either in a cluttered drawer or a refuse pile. Much like the excess of paper that periodically erupts all over the stage (props by Michelle Kwan and Elisia Evans), it all becomes a mess that someone in the future will need to clean up (presumably stage manager Tara Mohan and/or backstage assistant Sarah Kaufmann). But then some of it resurfaces in the form of origami, offering a small glimmer of hope that something beautiful may emerge from the wreckage.
I have no dispute about the play’s capacity to provoke thought. Unfortunately, the plot moves a bit sluggishly over its not-particularly-long 90 minute runtime, an ailment not helped by the slow burn pacing of MacPherson’s direction. I’m tempted to generously chalk this up to its authentic depiction of monotonous labour conditions and pointed resistance against the grindset. But as credible as those intentions may be, they don’t always result in the most captivating viewing experience.
The core cast nonetheless does a fine job of bringing us along for the ride. Fried lives up to her character’s name by gracefully delivering some of MacPherson’s most lyrical passages, and Tuong renders Oliver as a gentle agitator who we’d be lucky to have leading the charge. But the real standout is McAlear, who’s perfectly cast as that one infuriating coworker whose grating chipperness robs her peers of their cathartically righteous misery.
Erased is admirably earnest, but that quality can become inhibiting when the show also feels like it wants to be a satire. There’s not much room for comedy in this bleak thought experiment, apart from a few witty descriptions of the greeting cards’ vapid sentiments. Moreover, despite occasional attempts at physical comedy, the characters’ use of the conveyor belt isn’t nearly as entertaining as its iconic counterparts in Modern Times and I Love Lucy. The work is just that: work. Nothing flashy.
Although it might stop short of folding itself into the origami bird that it clearly wants to be, Erased is at its best when it tries to be more of a blank page. It’s in the moments of poignant ambiguity that it really succeeds in firing up the audience’s imaginations, inviting us to try envisioning a better future.
Erased runs at Theatre Passe Muraille until November 30. Tickets are available here.
Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
Ryan Borochovitz
Ryan Borochovitz (he/him) is a Toronto-based dramaturg, director, playwright, and academic. He is currently a PhD Candidate in the Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto, and holds an MA in Theatre Theory and Dramaturgy from the University of Ottawa. He is the founding artistic director of the (essentially defunct) independent production company, Sad Ibsen Theatre. He currently serves as the co-artistic producer – former literary manager – of Cup of Hemlock Theatre, for whom he produces and occasionally hosts the theatre enthusiasm podcast, The Cup.
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