Doctor Givings (Anurag “Anni” Choudhury), a medical practitioner obsessed with the development of electricity and its many uses, has invented a device to cure that misogynystic, pesky feminine malady — “hysteria.” Much to his nosy wife Catherine’s (Sophia Metcalf) chagrin, Givings invites female patients into the “next room,” where he stimulates them to orgasm with a comically large device reminiscent of a sci-fi ray gun about the size of a femur. Sabrina Daldry (Clara Nizard) is one such afflicted woman, suffering from sensitivities to light, cold, and other ‘feminine ailings.’

Although the cast’s acting at times strayed toward being superfluously dramatic, the flow of dialogue and physical movement was diligently rehearsed, making the interactions with the set (two rooms divided by a thin wall) pleasingly complicated. Characters set up moments of sexual tension and of great dramatic irony simply by streamlining their movements on set between the two rooms. Comedic moments occurred mostly due to the brilliance of the writing, but the stage direction by director Myrna Wyatt Selkirk particularly highlighted the pun-centred wordplay and the parallelism present within the text as characters moved within each room in synchrony.

After all, sexual politics tend to relax a little when there is a three-foot dildo in the next room.

Particular praise is owed to the collaboration between costume designer Catherine Bradley and Wyatt Selkirk; attention to Victorian-era undergarment detailing and corresponding stage direction marries the constant layering of innuendos and petticoats.

Themes of sex, innovation, desire, lesbianism, and motherhood are dealt with a sometimes slightly heavy hand, as they develop strong and early. From the first scene, themes of technology (shown in a soliloquy on candlelight) and matriarchal desperation (heard in a whispered prayer to a hungry child) shoot out the gate, leaving little room to develop delicately.

Throughout the show, interactions between Mr. and Mrs. Givings are deliberately mismatched in emotional intimacy, leaving room for the growth of the latter’s sexual appetite to motivate her actions, perhaps too eagerly.

The sexism inherent in heteronormative Victorian sexual morals is dealt with deftly by the crew, as dialogue surrounding the assumed lack of sexuality of all women draws laughs and not scorn. After all, sexual politics tend to relax a little when there is a three-foot dildo in the next room. Nonetheless, misogyny is undercut, and therefore critiqued, by presenting the women as the primary agents of sexual discovery in contrast to backwards male hegemonic thought.

Irrespective of their forced introductions, the thematic vibrations throughout the play are heard as clearly as the ecstasy in Sabrina Daldry’s moans. In the Next Room is sure to be a delightful romp.

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For those who are haven’t seen a Rocky Horror production (known as “virgins” and, once quickly spotted, often emblazoned with sharpied Vs on their foreheads), the gist of the event is Richard O’Brien’s cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show playing on the big screen. Actors mime the dialogue and action on stage while audience members yell lines and throw some choice objects as they appear on screen.

Montreal has a history of lavish Halloween Ball showings, where theatre-goers in circus-like vaudevillian attire and blood-streaked lingerie throw toast and toilet paper at the stage, as per tradition at live showings. But has the Montreal community been able to sustain the original movie’s intention of providing a diving board for discourse on trans and queer activisms, or has annual repetition caused the show’s trans and queer positive spirit to wane?

Montreal has a history of lavish Halloween Ball showings, where theatre-goers in circus-like vaudevillian attire and blood-streaked lingerie throw toast and toilet paper at the stage, as per tradition at live showings.

The Daily sat down with the director of Montreal’s Rocky Horror Picture Show showing, Phil Spurrel, to find out how he meshes this year’s Halloween Ball version with the original film.

The McGill Daily (MD): Rocky Horror is a Montreal staple, and it’s easy for the actors to just mimic the movie plot on stage line by line as it happens in the movie. What’s different about this year?

Phil Spurrel (PS): Besides the fact that it’s the 40th anniversary [of the film], part of what we do with this Halloween Ball version is we have a lot of pre-show things going on – costume contests and other entertainment – and it’s going to feel like a 40th birthday party for Rocky Horror in this town. And of course, as per tradition, our host is Plastik Patrik, as he has been since 2001.

MD: It seems the show gets more popular every year. Do you think this year’s adaptation, and years’ prior, are swaying more toward entertainment, or are they staying closer to their roots as political activism for trans rights?

PS: No, I think it’s staying true to its roots. This being the 40th anniversary, we see a lot of big mainstream media corporations south of the border observing that and dragging out [the appropriation] by saying, “Oh, remember Susan Sarandon and Meatloaf?” but they don’t go into any depth with the political aspects behind it. But in Montreal, it’s more queer-friendly and more inclusive, [which is] partly to do with the city being particularly open minded compared to other cities, and the fact that a lot of the cast members identify as somewhere within the LGBT [spectrum].
As the producer, I want to provide quality entertainment with a good production value so people get their money’s worth – but there’s also the cast, [bringing] their own energy and ideas and all their creativity. And I don’t have much control over what they do; they do their thing and I’m happy with what they do. There’s a real energy behind the whole thing.

MD: You mentioned earlier that most of the cast identifies somewhere on the LGBT spectrum. Is that a requirement?

But in Montreal, it’s more queer-friendly and more inclusive, [which is] partly to do with the city being particularly open minded compared to other cities, and the fact that a lot of the cast members identify as somewhere within the LGBT [spectrum].

PS: It’s not a requirement, it’s just the way that it turns out. It’s interesting that whether it’s people who are sure about their sexuality at a certain age, or whether it’s somebody that’s uncertain and they see this fun group they want to be part of, their coming out happens gradually within the group or by attending the show and getting a closer look at themselves and being in an environment where they feel safe and free to express themselves however they like. The cast, it’s very open, and every orientation is welcome and everybody is just… it’s one big happy family.

MD: What was the most difficult or intensive part of production this year?

PS: [The cast is] always trying to perfect their Time Warp dance, and they do variations on it. You see a sexier, raunchier take [than in the film]. Speaking of choreography, one of the elements we tried out maybe six years ago – it was such a hit and I as the producer insisted that we keep doing it – was the Thriller mashup, where they take Michael Jackson’s Thriller choreography, but partway through the song it stops and another song invades it. We always make it a surprise; this year it’s based on a viral homemade Youtube video.
Also, over the last four years, we’ve gotten professional circus performers doing acrobatics and an aerialist coming down from the ceiling. It looks dangerous, but people seem to know what they’re doing. So I would say some of the more difficult parts go toward complex dance and stunt acrobatic choreography.

MD: Rocky Horror obviously has a lot of sexual content and mimicking of sex acts. Does that have roots for you in the film’s activism or is it more for shock value?

[The cast is] always trying to perfect their Time Warp dance, and they do variations on it. You see a sexier, raunchier take [than in the film].

PS: I think it’s more for fun. One of the more common questions we get asked by parents is, “Is this appropriate for children?” and I say, it depends on how open-minded you are as a parent, and how you convey that to your kids. I tell them that they’re better off attending the 8 o’clock instead of the 11 o’clock show, because [the show] tends to get a little raunchier as [the cast] gets loose a little more on stage, and the audience [as well].

MD: It seems like the cast members deliberately play with gender norms, as well.
PS: Oh yeah, [it’s] one of [the actor who plays Frankie’s] favourite things; if you go to her place, she also has this poster on her wall that says “Gender is flexible,” and she in her daily life tries to express [that] as much as possible.

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The plotlines of some pieces were not always obvious, as they were sometimes waiting to be written by audience participation, inverting the traditional process of show-and-tell. In the installation piece Birdly, attendees could lie face-down on a reclined chair with attached armrests and ‘fly’ through a computer-generated 3D map of New York City – simulated wind from a fan included.

Meandering through the exhibition, visitors could smell their way through Goldilocks and the Three Bears in Goldilocks and the Three Bears: The Smelly Version, sniffing the scents of the forests as Goldilocks trod ahead, and inhaling the smell of freshly brewed coffee sitting beside the beds. Children and adults alike excitedly interacted with classic stories in a new way.

The plotlines of some pieces were not always obvious, as they were sometimes waiting to be written by audience participation, inverting the traditional process of show-and-tell.

Others tried surviving as an investigative photographer during the 1979 Iranian Revolution in the animated video game 1979 Revolution Game – snapping photographs of key leaders during protests and wrapping gauze around injured citizens. Participants were also challenged to survive government interrogations by clicking different responses to their jailers’ questions, hoping the answers wouldn’t implicate them further.

For the environmentally minded, Bear 71 offered the ability to track the daily habits of a black bear in rural British Columbia by touching a floor-to-ceiling map projected on a wall, exploring the effects of deforestation and pollution on the bear’s daily habits as it interacted with its environment and other species. Live-cam videos showed the habitats of the bears in real time, allowing viewers to literally enter the natural world.

One piece, a short film called Possibilia by artist group DANIELS, allowed viewers to immerse themselves in a couple’s breakup. Intermittently, a viewer could choose from a number of panels on the bottom of the screen, and shift the scene both in terms of setting and energy level of the actors – customizing the anger and sadness with which actors would deliver lines and the room they were interacting in with not even a break mid-sentence from shift to shift. Customizable options faded away as the story progressed, driving home the inevitability of the final outcome.

“Sensory Stories” served as a reminder to visitors of the powerful truth that storytelling is indeed an art form, one that is continually and innovatively reimagined.

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Over half of the 120-some pages in the official Montreal Pride booklet were taken up by corporate advertisements, making cursory allusions to Pride with rainbows plastered somewhere across their logos. On the sponsors page of Montreal Pride – brought to you by Viagra! – corporations were labelled as ‘ambassadors’ and even ‘friends,’ depending on their funding level – furthering the idea that corporations, like people, care! For example, the Société de Transport de Montréal’s minimum donation bought it the label of ‘friend,’ which is concerning because allowing LGBTQ individuals to board public transportation is not a gracious extension of the hand of ‘friendship;’ it’s providing a basic public service, one that shouldn’t be based on sex/gender or sexual orientation in the first place. It’s rankling to see ads for hotels, fast food, banks, condoms, cars, and beer (among others) congratulating everyone on the fight for equal rights, because these companies had no interest in publicly standing in solidarity with Pride until recently, when the market for doing so became so lucrative.

What does the commercialization of queer culture mean for the queer community – putting aside corporations who profit off of this calculated flag-waving? At its heart, Pride has always grown from the ground up, cultivating safe havens for those targeted by heteronormative patriarchy. Queer culture is everything that capitalism is not. Under the premise of ‘catering to the majority,’ advertising agencies that create these ads tailor messages to their target audience, and if their target is ‘queer,’ no doubt it embodies itself as a gay, able-bodied, white, cis male. Trans and race issues are seen as too radical, and thus remain untouched by mainstream entities because the imagery isn’t considered as pretty and safe as the white gay couple next door with a garden and a minivan.

On the sponsors page of Montreal Pride – brought to you by Viagra! – corporations were labelled as ‘ambassadors’ and even ‘friends,’ depending on their funding level – furthering the idea that corporations, like people, care!

This June, as the White House celebrated the legalization of same-sex marriage, President Obama was interrupted by Jennicet Gutiérrez, a trans undocumented worker of colour. Her cry of “President Obama, stop the torture and abuse of trans women in detention centres,” was met with a patronizing “Shame on you,” and finger-wagging by the president himself before she was forcibly removed from the premises. Lauding the egality of same-sex marriage as the end-all be-all solution to heterosexism perpetuates the systematic silencing of trans women, who are the most likely subgroup of the LGBTQ community to be murdered.

Take the 2015 movie Stonewall – a fictionalized retelling of the Stonewall riots of 1969 in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. In the trailer (the movie has not yet been released), the protagonist is a white farm boy who manages to find himself in gay nightclubs while witnessing the institutionalized violence toward the few queer people of colour around him – cementing their role as mere objects to further the plot toward the protagonist’s self-centered moment of revelation. The true instigators of the Stonewall riots and other LGBTQ protests throughout Greenwich Village at that time were Black trans women, so why were they written out of the narrative? Because a white male hero is relatable, and therefore, marketable. By whitewashing and neatly packaging the ‘most acceptable’ (and least complicated) parts of the early New York City Pride movement, Hollywood perpetuates the very racism and bigotry it claims to eradicate. Unfortunately, these incorrect portrayals of history are the loudest, and end up misrepresenting LGBTQ communities.

Further commercialization of Pride has manifested in the disappearance of the physical bastions of queer culture. Formerly, queer individuals could find solace in major cities’ Gay Villages, from Toronto to Vancouver to New York, and even smaller cities often had a few bars clustered in a certain part of town. Villages still exist, but their importance is mostly historical, as queer bars and clubs have popped up in other neighbourhoods. The expansion of the market for queer bars, sex shops, bookstores, cafes et cetera in recent years, now that being queer no longer means instant physical marginalization, has led to less grassroots support for unconventional safe spaces. Montreal lesbian bars Royal Phoenix and Le Drugstore have closed due to this gentrification of sorts, and queer girls bemoan the ‘queer’ bars left catering primarily to gay, white, cis men.

Under the premise of ‘catering to the majority,’ advertising agencies that create these ads tailor messages to their target audience, and if their target is ‘queer,’ no doubt it embodies itself as a gay, able-bodied, white, cis male.

The commercialization of queer life has forced a consumerist approach on the queer community. Classism is ever encroaching: those who need the most support from their communities and governments are lower-income, housing insecure, have limited access to contraceptives and other protections, and suffer continual harassment and prejudice. Despite the claims of the Love Wins campaign, while same-sex marriage was ruled constitutional in the U.S., discrimination against LGBTQ individuals in the workplace remains unlegislated. Love has not yet won.

Daily grassroots volunteering and activism efforts are perhaps the greatest hope for many Villages’ longevity. Activists passionate about trans-positive queer movements’ DIY ethos need to stay true to their roots, instead of taking an ‘at-least-it’s-some-progress’ approach by accepting the little privileges the state begrudgingly grants the LGBTQ community. They are the only force standing in the way of the commercialization of free goods and services necessary to overcome class barriers that would otherwise hinder access to gender empowerment items, makeup, food, binders, and safer sex products.

Unfettered free-market capitalism is a detriment to queer culture, and does nothing to help those who need tight-knit queer communities the most. “Love wins” is a misleading battle cry, because it assumes the fight is already over; a more appropriate slogan could be: “Love will win so keep fighting,” but it’s up to LGBTQ activists to shout it loud, because it’s not short and sweet enough to fit on full-page advertisements in pamphlets.

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Moretti’s future as a reputable screenwriter hangs in the balance, as do the careers of his actors. He initially accepts a partnership with Canadian producer Jake Henry Smith (David Gow), who promises him sizeable public funding for his movie if he survives the editing process with Sarah Mackenzie (Leni Parker) from the Film Fund. The rest of the play sees the actors of Romeo’s Rise practicing their lines, arguing over romances, and fretting about the movie, while Moretti complains about the Film Fund’s bureaucracy and ineptitude. Lacking a complex and developed plot, The Envelope coasts through its story with frustratingly little effort.

The play’s biggest misstep is in the writing: it promises an exploration of the conflict between artistic integrity and pursuit of profit, not to mention the difficult balance between loyalty and individualism in a cutthroat industry. Unfortunately, The Envelope lacks any kind of meaningful emotional depth, as well as any motivation behind characters’ words and actions. When the stress over the fate of Romeo’s Rise culminates, one of the actors breaks down in tears – a superfluous, misplaced crying scene that is almost laughable in its disingenuousness.

This lack of impact could be attributed in part to the rushed dialogue, but, in fairness to the actors, the characters themselves are unengaging tropes: there’s the young swarthy Italian who is two steps away from a fistfight at any point, the flamboyant older actor to provide comic relief, and the innocent young actress in her first major show, to mention a few. While local actor Ron Lea is magnificent as Moretti, the aging playwright is little more than a Mary Sue – a flat and overly autobiographical character grappling with the hardships of playwriting.

The whole thing comes across as a lukewarm monologue pinballing between characters as they complain about how hard it is to ‘make it big’ in the industry. Before long, the trick gets old, and it starts to feel like Rossi wrote this play to passive-aggressively trash-talk the Canadian film scene.

Actually, almost all the characters appear to be mouthpieces for the playwright himself. The whole thing comes across as a lukewarm monologue pinballing between characters as they complain about how hard it is to ‘make it big’ in the industry. Before long, the trick gets old, and it starts to feel like Rossi wrote this play to passive-aggressively trash-talk the Canadian film scene. The problem is that Rossi wrote what the conflict is, but not why it’s important to the characters, which leaves the audience wondering why it should care what happens at all.

The humour also leaves something to be desired, relying on offensive and boring tropes. The only two female characters are both forced into awkward romances, and are otherwise mocked: the women are emotional and the men talk business. When Mackenzie (Parker), the older businesswoman, starts getting reasonably upset about the state of Canada’s movie industry, a male character tells her to “calm down and watch Dr. Phil,” playing the line for laughs. The biggest eye-roll comes when Moretti mansplains screenwriting to his female editor, describing the basics of filmmaking to her – a job she has done for her entire career.

Rossi’s stereotypical characters dabble in artistic and cultural elitism, as they mock awful blockbusters and children’s movies, claiming that these pale in comparison to theatre and high art. These condescending scenes give the impression that Rossi sees his own work as more culturally significant than pop culture. Indeed, one of The Envelope’s supposedly tragic moments is when Moretti is demanded to ‘dumb down’ his play so it can be turned into a children’s movie. This elitism is used to overly romanticize Moretti’s struggle for success.

Rossi’s cultural lament extends beyond the arts to an ancient critique of contemporary society. Characters engage in yelling matches about the garbage Millennial age of convenience over struggle: “Fuck Facebook, fuck Twitter. Connect with each other and not your phones,” screams one character, yearning for the yesteryear of film reviews delivered via carrier pigeons.

As a drama, The Envelope isn’t very intriguing. As a comedy, it isn’t very funny. That said, if you’re ever in the mood for angry people being angry as a sore surrogate for plot, The Envelope will certainly deliver.

 
The Envelope runs at Centaur Theatre until April 19.

The post <em>The Envelope</em> mistakes complaining for comedy appeared first on The McGill Daily.

At the event, workshop participants ate homemade daal and talked about both personal and political sexual issues. “I think there’s an under-emphasis on sexual organs [in queer circles]. We talk a lot about gender identity, but not a lot about organs,” said Nadia Argueta, a 2013 McGill graduate and current social worker. She pointed out that while not all women have vaginas – and so focusing exclusively on one type of sexual organ is cissexist – the vagina is largely undervalued, shamed, and stigmatized in our society.

The workshop aimed to counter this very stigma, which comes from patriarchal body policing. Participants worked enthusiastically, embellishing their vagina puppets with glitter, rhinestones, pictures of the Virgin Mary, and pipe-cleaner pubic hair. With loud, joyous gestures they reclaimed the vagina as something to be celebrated in its beauty.

“I was really surprised at how central the experience is,” Kirkby said of making her first vagina, “Of getting to use the glue and use the paper [to] feel the shape of the vagina – getting to think about something that’s often hidden from view.”

Participants worked enthusiastically, embellishing their vagina puppets with glitter, rhinestones, pictures of the Virgin Mary, and pipe-cleaner pubic hair. With loud, joyous gestures they reclaimed the vagina as something to be celebrated in its beauty.

Kirkby’s past experience includes working for CKUT and the Centre for Gender Advocacy, but the inception of the idea for her first paper-mâché vagina occurred last year in South America.

While covering the 2014 Bolivian elections, Kirkby roomed at a hostel-café run by Mujeres Creando, a radical anarcha-feminist collective that works to deconstruct patriarchal, colonialist symbols and rhetoric at micro and macro levels. “They combat machismo and violence against women,” Kirkby explained, “[and] they use a lot of controversial art in their work – what a lot of people see as aggressive artwork – and it was really inspiring.” To thank her hosts, Kirkby made her first paper-mâché vagina, which would birth future cardboard vaginas in Montreal.

The experience was a visceral one, as participants coated pieces of soaked cardboard with thick warm glue. Andrea Miller-Nesbitt, librarian at the McGill Life Sciences Library, shaped shining gold tissue paper around the outer labia of her paper-mâché vagina. “We live in a very patriarchal society,” she said, critiquing the lack of knowledge about female in relation to male genitalia.

The artists discussed the pitfalls of cultural stigma while carefully sculpting vaginal curves and crevices, their meticulous work making the paper-mâché vaginas both literally and figuratively stronger. Kirkby also told The Daily about ideas for future workshops, including experimenting with different materials and shapes and possibly making a “vaginal Medusa” covered in vicious snakes – an allusion to various Southern American folk tales about a mythical woman with a venerably violent anti-rape precaution.

“Most women have not two lips, but four,” Kirkby reflected, noting that one can only imagine the stories women would tell if they were not just free to talk, but also able to talk freely, with unrestrained power. Resisting and deconstructing cultural norms is a painstaking exercise in patience; but this workshop opened a space to build not only highly provocative and beautiful mantelpiece hangings, but also the foundations of an artistic resistance.

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