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Winnipeg Free Press
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Musical explores cruelty, connection and beauty
Misogyny is a hateful weapon in Dogfight, a production being staged by Dry Cold Productions through Sunday that features music from Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the team that scored hits with La La Land and Dear Evan Hansen. Set on the eve of the assassination of U.S president John F. Kennedy, Dogfight — with a book by Peter Duchan, based on the 1991 film of the same name — follows a group of U.S. marines waiting to go to Vietnam. On the town in San Francisco for one last night, the young men participate in a revolting tradition: they throw their money into a pot and whoever can find the ugliest date will ship out a few hundred dollars richer. 'It's a tradition that actually existed and probably to a degree, still exists today,' says director Justin Stadnyk. 'The justification that they used at the time was by desensitizing themselves and dehumanizing the other, the soldiers wouldn't have feelings, so that when they go to war, they've stripped themselves of any sensitivities to taking another life or treating another human like an object.' In the rehearsal hall last Friday, the metaphor of misogynistic weaponization was actualized as the cast was led through a replica-firearm safety seminar by Manitoba educator Dave Brown. 'This isn't John Wick,' said Brown, whom Keanu Reeves has called 'the Jedi master of firearms training.' Brown, who's been a firearm safety co-ordinator in theatre and film since the 1980s, then quoted Thomas Hobbes when describing the brutality of war and the unforgiving nature of a mishandled, disrespected prop. 'It's nasty, brutish and short,' he said. As Brown walked the cast and crew through his workshop, Stadnyk, along with star Katie German and producer Donna Fletcher, considered the potent messages at the heart of the play, the latest in Dry Cold's mission to produce musicals not seen before on local stages. Fletcher says the '60s-set work belongs to the same lineage as swashbuckling 1940s musicals like Anchors Aweigh and On the Town, except it pokes holes through the nostalgic, innocent filter often associated with previous generations, helping to shed light on the tensions at play in contemporary times. 'Like Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan, this isn't about the glory but the cost and not just the cost to entire generations, but to individuals,' she says. 'There's a lot of focus on the men in the show, but all of the women have specific moments where they hold a lot of power,' says German, whose waitress Rose challenges the outlook of strapping marine Eddie Birdlace (Reid McTavish). 'Even if the women aren't onstage for as much time, the things they say and do are so integral to changing how the characters move in this space and I found that really curious too.' For German, who directed this season's Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre production of Little Women, Dogfight feels pressing because it forces audiences and actors to redefine beauty. In the theatre world, every actor is confronted by both self-image and expected appearance, she says. 'As a woman going through it, it's challenging to see the breakdowns for productions and being like, 'Can I fit into this mould that you think I should be fitting into?' So this show is a really interesting commentary.' During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. 'There's a great line in the show where Eddie says to Rose, 'I don't care what you look like,' and she simply responds, 'I wish you did,'' Stadnyk says. 'As a mom, this show is a really nice teaching tool,' says German, who has two children. 'Theatre is a wonderful, safe way to introduce these concepts, provided that you have the conversations afterward.' While the show traces its way through emotionally charged material, Stadnyk says the heaviness is balanced and juxtaposed by Pasek and Paul's 'young, testosterone-fuelled music.' Will they ever stop singing that same old song? If you value coverage of Manitoba's arts scene, help us do more. Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism. BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER Click here to learn more about the project. 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
Rising tension
The title of playwright David McLeod's self-secure and roof-raisingly funny new work, Elevate: Manaaji'idiwin, prepares the audience for a comedy defined by an inherited colonial divide. From an anglocentric perspective, the punctuation implies an interconnectivity between independent clauses. As a symbol of ratio, the colon expresses comparison and can also act as a stand-in for equal measure and reciprocity. It's assumed one side means the same as the other. But what's that thing they taught us about assumptions? Missed understanding and ceiling-shifting command is at the heart of Elevate: Manaaji'idiwin, which had its première Thursday on Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre's mainstage after five years of development beginning in the company's Pimootayowin Creators Circle, an incubator for new plays by Manitoba-based Indigenous artists. DYLAN HEWLETT PHOTO Nolan Moberly and Kevin Klassen get to know eachother in the confined space of ELEVATE: Manaaji'idiwin. (Manaaji'idiwin doesn't translate directly to 'elevate,' but means 'to go easy on one another and all of Creation' and is commonly a reference to respect.) As far as theatrical framing goes, McLeod did himself a favour by constraining this land's most pressing conversation into a tinder box for two. Before the living, breathing characters enter, designer William Layton's fractal, fractured vision of downtown Winnipeg blues, the centrepiece of the production — a Mondrian-esque cage promoting dissent and descent — immediately flashes its potential as a metaphor for rising and falling action. The elevator is posed as a disruptive vehicle of industrialism, an invention defined by access. In downtown Winnipeg of the past, attendants in department stores, such as Eaton's or Hudson's Bay, decided who went where, and when. In an era resembling our own, a computerized interface called Sharon (Melissa Langdon) is the gatekeeper for this tower's 33 floors. Even as he jokes about his tendency to arrive fashionably late in accordance with 'Indian time,' Tallahassee (Nolan Moberly) is the first man on the scene; it's an indisputable fact. But from the moment he enters, Sharon's 'real-time optimization' is at odds with Tallahassee's presence. Trained by flawed humans, the artificial intelligence is predisposed to sound the intruder alarm. Moments after assuring Tallahassee that 'Indigenous rights are human rights,' the interface threatens his removal and calls into question his stability, despite having no reason other than learned bias to do so. Who taught the machine to hate like that? Built on an experience the local playwright had in his early 20s, when he was clocked as a threat based solely on appearance and identity, this opening scene greases the cogs for a subtle yet scathing critique of militaristic, racist and technocratic securitization, which tends to serve as a means of protection for those who believe they have more to lose than those who have already faced the loss of everything they'd ever cherished. DYLAN HEWLETT PHOTO Nolan Moberly (left) and Kevin Klassen's actions evolve to play with tropes from science fiction and racist 1970s westerns. Enter Harrison T. Jones (Kevin Klassen), a lawyer who is late for a very important date in the profit-driven wonderland of the 33rd floor. 'Excuse me,' he tells Tallahassee as he crosses the threshold into the ensuing ethical cage match. 'You're kind of in my way.' More concerned with the implications of the next contract than the ramifications of first contact, Jones is a strawman convinced he's a brick house. 'I'm gonna end this little exchange before it turns into a conversation,' says the custom-suited solicitor, a woefully lonely man who's never been suitable for equal partnership. This dismissal is nothing new for Tallahassee, who walks with the clarity of a man who's counted every courthouse step and knows not to be fooled by a Faustian handshake. (Both characters, costumed by Amy McPherson, use clothing as security blanket.) 'I'm visiting a white guy,' Tallahassee tells a friend before losing cell reception, revelling in making Jonesie squirm. 'He's got a very small place. No kitchen, no windows, no toilet and no running water. Still nicer than yours.' With expert direction from Herbie Barnes, Elevate: Manaaji'idiwin is sly and knowing, a city play that should reach the highest offices of any corporation espousing reconciliation in its words, but denying lived truth in its actions. Sharply rendered, McLeod's script, though long, never wastes time, gleefully dancing through dreamscape, family history and folkloric, magical realism. As lines are drawn on the suddenly shared territory, the characters' actions evolve to play with tropes from science fiction (a flux capacitor is referenced) and 1970s western 'redsploitation.' 'Your attitude is burning both sides of my bannock,' Tallahassee scowls, transforming into his alter-ego, Billy Jack, whose jean jacket is his bulletproof vest. (Sharon provides an IMDb logline for the 1971 film about a part-Navajo antihero, played by white actor Tom Laughlin, to assist the uninitiated.) Soon, the characters are engaged in a rap battle, having a ball while brawling their way to the top. DYLAN HEWLETT PHOTO The play's centrepiece is a Mondrian-esque cage promoting dissent and descent. During Elections Get campaign news, insight, analysis and commentary delivered to your inbox during Canada's 2025 election. 'Are we fighting on the three or the four?' Jonesie asks, establishing ground rules while simultaneously alluding to the fact that he doesn't know which treaty land he stands on. If there's any critique to be made about this production, it might be that Tallahassee's grace and capacity to work within and around Jonesie's racist anachronisms is otherworldly, and therefore, unrealistic. Indeed, when the characters eventually meet at eye level against visual artist Peatr Thomas's monumental, gorgeous backdrop, a few groans were stifled in the theatre's lower bowl. 'Personally, I can believe a fairy tale if it connects,' Jonesie says, after finally giving Tallahassee the last word. 'A red thread,' Tallahassee says. 'This is a good sign, Jonesie.' 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.
