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Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Sheer provocation
Neither Here Nor There, a liminal comedy from Sick + Twisted Theatre, will certainly divide audiences. That is by design: as guests walk into the auditorium at Prairie Theatre Exchange, they're given the option to sit on either side of a patchwork curtain, predetermining at least one dimension of the unconventional experience to come. Well before Thursday evening's hostess, the insightful, freewheeling Lara Rae, induces the first of many chuckles, the concept of choice is already introduced, the first steps down individual paths of desire to be trodden by theatregoers venturing together into the dark unknown of an original production. BROOK JONES/FREE PRESS Vivi Dabee (right) and Vivian Cheung are separated by a curtain, allowing the audience to see half the stage. Billed as a retelling of the legend of Tiresias, who was turned into a woman and stripped of vision after forsaking the Greek gods, Neither Here Nor There boldly challenges widely accepted narratives surrounding disability, gender, autonomy and desire. Starring a mixture of blind, low-vision and sighted actors, working alongside trans performers, the production is built with a mission to construct and then dismantle binary thinking, tearing down brick walls and replacing them with open windows. One needn't be a Classics scholar to feel included, because Neither Here Nor There, written by committee and directed by Debbie Patterson, is loosely professorial in style, best exemplified by Rae's hilarious, honest autobiographical asides about her transition and a registered therapist's (Gislina Patterson) impassioned stump speech about the true value of public bathrooms, given to a sex-obsessed Zeus (Tyler Sneesby), who, to be fair, has his fair share of mother-father-sisterwife issues to work through. There's a rich endowment of male appendage jokes, a treasure trove of vagina jokes and some achingly silly puns about French geography that might land les auteurs in writers' gaol. From start to finish, Neither Here Nor There is an oddly compelling and compellingly odd concoction that forces audience members to consider the bias of their own perspectives, and whether their sightline is as clear as they'd previously thought. Because the set is bisected by a sheer curtain, each audience member's field of vision is intentionally blurred. On one side is the ancient domain of Tiresias (Vivi Dabee), who was rendered blind and turned into a woman for seeing too much and angering the gods, becoming an oracle with the ability to communicate most easily with winged friends. On the other is Ty (Vivian Cheung), a trend forecaster with a power that could make even Zeus quake with envy: with a single phone call, she can make skinny jeans cool again. Both performers rest on chaise longue, which provides one of the best running, or sitting, jokes in the show. If a piece of furniture can exist at the nexus of chair and couch, can't we find our identities somewhere in the middle, too? The production, a tad overlong at about 100 minutes, is strengthened by all elements of design, which support one another in novel ways. Before the action begins, a digital assistant, voiced by sound designer Dasha Plett, describes the set, which includes Zeus's home on Mount Olympus and the office of Ty's tech overlord boss. Then Plett describes the colour, style and material of each costume, designed by Sarah Struthers, introducing the actors wearing them with a healthy dose of shtick. 'Lara Rae is five-foot-10, and unlike Cinderella, she can't find a single shoe that fits.' Taking surprising turns, which are usually fruitful and less often belaboured, Neither Here Nor There is ultimately a well-crafted forum for honest, intentional theatre, rooted in purposeful listening, curiosity and reconsideration. The gods will agree on that. Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Finding the right touch
With their latest original stage production, opening tonight at Prairie Theatre Exchange, Sick + Twisted is inviting audiences not just to look and to listen, but to feel. Before each performance of Neither Here Nor There, up to eight guests will have the opportunity to be led onto the Cherry Karpyshin Mainstage for a 'touch tour,' allowing low-vision, blind and sighted audience members alike to experience the set and gain an understanding of the production's non-traditional geography. Playing on a traverse stage, also known as a corridor or alley, the company's adaptation of the legend of the blind seer Tiresias places audiences on either side of the action, says director Debbie Patterson. BROOK JONES / FREE PRESS Tyler Sneeby (left) and Vivi Dabee star in Neither Here Nor There. With the stage bisected by a sheer curtain, the audience can only see half of the show clearly, the other blurred by the barricade. The staging and the touch tour play into the trailblazing company's commitment to disability esthetics, using lived experience with disability as an opportunity for exploration and discovery rather than a barrier to experience, says Patterson. 'When you can't walk across the room, every other way becomes available to you,' she says. One of the production's three blind actors describes their experience with vision loss as one of 'limitless possibility.' 'We embrace the barriers we face as potent catalysts for discovery and innovation, so the esthetic choices in this production have been arrived at through this process, giving us this utterly new approach to making theatre. No one else is making theatre like this,' says Patterson. By decentring vision as a prerequisite for participation, the company was able to emphasize theatre as a complete sensory experience, with a script that expresses every action with a corresponding audio cue, designed by Dasha Plett, who was just nominated for a Toronto theatre award — a Dora — for her work in Buddies in Bad Times' production of Roberto Zucco. 'All the props are mimed, but the sound effects are hyperrealistic,' Patterson says. Created and performed by a team of blind and transgender artists, Neither Here Nor There had its start during the pandemic when Patterson sought to create a work developed by members of both communities. 'One participant wrote a song about how being blind felt like being neither here nor there, and that idea of being in an in-between really resonated with some of the trans artists,' Patterson says. The show's cast includes Lara Rae as the production's hostess, a cross between a Greek chorus and a standup comic who periodically comments on the action. Tyler Sneesby, a.k.a. DJ Hunnicutt, plays Zeus. Plett and Gislina Patterson (We Quit Theatre) also appear, as do Vivi Dabee as Tiresias and Vivian Cheung as the character's modern counterpart, Ti. Making their stage debut is m patchwork monoceros, who also designed the set. BROOK JONES / FREE PRESS The stage is split by a sheer curtain so the audience can only see half of the show clearly. 'My character is a person who has vision, who can see the future, who understands trends, but because she knows so much, she keeps herself small, experiencing a type of loneliness no one else can understand,' says Cheung, a blind actor, triathlete, author, graphic novelist, accessible yoga instructor and Dora-nominated theatre creator from Toronto performing in Winnipeg for the first time. 'Oftentimes, when a person lives with a physical disability, they have to explain themselves repeatedly until they're heard, and that gets very fatiguing. I can't stress enough that we need more listening in this world, more quiet participation and quiet leadership.' Weekday Evenings Today's must-read stories and a roundup of the day's headlines, delivered every evening. That's what Cheung says she found working with Sick + Twisted, which implemented her insights into the way the production took shape. The script calls for Ti to make a stir-fry in her home kitchen, but when the actor pointed out that if she were holding a cellphone while doing it, it would end up in the wok, the team quickly decided with Cheung to mime all of the cooking actions instead. 'Now our sound designer Dasha is choreographing the sound to support my cooking. It's become a duet in cooking between miming and movement, with the stage manager timing the sizzling and the sounds of vegetables going into the wok,' says Cheung 'It's a collaboration in every sense of the word.' Ben WaldmanReporter Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University's (now Toronto Metropolitan University's) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben. Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Toronto comedian headlines Gay AF tour
When Toronto-based trans comedian Ava Val decided to call her debut comedy special So Brave, she was making a half-ironic joke. It's a tongue-in-cheek title that reflects her material that poke fun at overzealous allies — 'I know they mean well but, you know, being called brave in public isn't the compliment some of you think it is,' she says over Zoom — but there's some earnestness there, too. 'When you zoom out and look at the full special, and all the material that I'm doing about coming out and about pursuing my own brand of happiness and transitioning — all that stuff does, unironically, take a lot of bravery.' SUPPLIED Toronto's Ava Val brings her first comedy special, So Brave, to Winnipeg. Val — who performs at Prairie Theatre Exchange on Saturday as part of the Gay AF Comedy Tour with Robert Watson — has been doing comedy for 18 years, but So Brave, which came out last year and is available on YouTube, represents an evolution for her as both a comedian and a person. Val, who is in her 30s, officially started transitioning four years ago. It was a time of deep personal contemplation and growth — but also, comedy. Writing her way through that process was healing. She didn't have to hide anymore. 'It's cliché to say this, but comedy really, truly is therapy. It's so therapeutic. Coming out provided a kind of a slingshot effect. After being so closeted for so long and over-projecting this masculinity, this bro-yness, coming out was so liberating. I felt like I wanted to just put my cards on the table at all times,' she says. Before she transitioned, Val inhabited a party-boy persona in her comedy, counting Dane Cook among her influences. 'My material was very, very much a projection away from myself. None of it was personal. I never spoke about how I felt or what I observed in the world. It was all just kind of silliness, goofiness, characters, a lot of crowd work — just stuff that had nothing to do with me,' she says. Looking back, Val says she felt more like a party host that left audiences feeling like they had a good time, but not much beyond that. 'It's forgettable in that sense,' she says. Val is still a high-energy and physical comedian, but being her authentic self has meant more authentic — and memorable — comedy. And the material is flowing; she's already in post-production on another special. The struggle, triumph and heartache she felt during her transition are all rich emotional places from which to mine, Val says. 'Comedy is so human and that honesty just came naturally because I was so excited to speak honestly for the first time in my life.' And humanity is sorely needed these days. In the U.S., an uptick in anti-trans discrimination and policies — such as U.S. immigration only recognizing identification that corresponds with a person's sex assigned at birth — has meant many trans artists across artistic disciplines are reconsidering their plans to tour south of the border. Val was originally planning to move to New York City and is waiting on her work visa. Now, she's not sure what the immediate future holds. 'It's a very precarious time for me right now,' she says. Some of her loved ones are begging her not to go to America at all. During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. But the best way she knows how to fight back is by being funny — and being visible. 'I always roll my eyes whenever people use the words 'Now more than ever,'' Val says. 'But there is definitely an element of truth that, like now more than ever I think trans voices need to be humanized. There's this culture war, this massive campaign to dehumanize us and to make us out to be predators and all these other things that we truly are not. 'And so, I think comedy has an especially powerful ability to humanize and to disarm people's notions about what kind of a threat I might be. I unapologetically lean into the trans stuff because I feel a higher calling to educate people and sort of help people understand a little bit more.' Jen ZorattiColumnist Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen. Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
