goestoshow

Brake is a story about a woman who’s son runs off into the street and gets hit by a car. His death triggers all sorts of changes in the lives of his parents, as well as the man who was driving the car that hit him. From the first scene, the play grabs your attention with a very emotionally intense scene. From there, though, I was a little less impressed with where they went, which involved some really strange choices that I won’t spoil here.

I don’t know if these are things that might really happen in this situation. I’ve never been in a situation remotely like it. I just have a lot of trouble making the leap that the playwrights (also the actors) did.

Everyone involved in this has been involved in UofA New Works plays that I’ve seen before, and they’re all very talented at their craft. I’m just not sure this was the right subject matter for them. Somehow I just wasn’t convinced.

Addition tells the story of a young gay couple who decide they want a threesome to spice up their love life. The scenario gets a little out of hand, though, as they dive down the rabbit hole of polyamory into what they hope is a stable 3 person relationship.

The really brave thing about this play, is how it diverges from most media about alternative relationship structures by being a relatively light hearted happy story. My experience with stories about this sort of thing is that they tend to be morality plays.

It’s also interesting that the play is centered around gay men, as I think the standard image of a multipartner relationship tends to involve one-man many-women. It’s in danger of falling into the trap of perpetuating notions of gay male promiscuity, but manages to avoid it through the earnest nature of the characters. They never seem to be slutty, they just seem to have fallen into a new form of monogamy by accident.

Generally, I’d be a little more down on this play for its possibly over-optimistic ending, but in this case I feel it’s justified as a balance against other shows, movies, and plays I’ve seen about this subject. It’s really nice to see a lighthearted approach to it.

Also worth noting is the comedic performances by all the actors involved. You can tell there’s a certain rawness to their performances, but again the earnestness of the actors makes the sometimes nerdy humor (two of the characters are LARPers, for example) come off really well.

If I have one complaint, it was that the venue is new and the acoustics weren’t quite worked out yet. The fridges off in the corner kept kicking in and interfering with the vocals of the performers. This seems to have been fixed in shows I’ve seen since then at this venue.