Debt Drama reviewed. Dryly. Meet Alanah!

A guest post, from a new contributor! I’ve seen a list of pitches from this author on subjects ranging from metro mechanics to urban planning and theatre reviews, and I already really dig her techno social perspective and wry style. As a sometimes actor (uhh embarassing but yes) and as someone who’s studied the history of newspapers a little bit (some) I have got to really value objective reviewing. Telling the truth pokes us to be better! Let’s hope she keeps ‘em coming! Ladies and Gents, meet Alanah!

Tempted by Sarah’s invitation to see a campy cabaret entitled The Dictatorship of Debt , I arrived at Sala Rossa last night to find the upstairs show space had been transformed into a lavish dining room, complete with lush red tablecloths, wine glasses, candles and baskets of hearty bread. Each table also featured the name of a country, and as the room was nearly packed when I arrived, and I ended up squeezing in at the foot of the Canadian table.

Uh-oh , I thought: audience interaction. The combination of dinner theatre and a lesson on global poverty made for a potentially charged soirée, and the thespians took full advantage of the situation, withholding food from the “impoverished” tables while offering seconds those of us lucky enough to be in the first world.

The cabaret brought to life gross caricatures of the players in international development: a trio of seductive bankers, an obese, honkey-talking America, and a droll, self-righteous Europe. Canada wasn’t cut any slack either – our nation was portrayed as a sniveling, teddybear-toting tag-along to big-brother America.

The biggest crowd-pleaser by far was the IMF – dressed in silver-sequined drag, she added her lusty voice to the chorus of “there are no alternatives” while being fondled by the invisible hand of freemarket economy.

Between rushed political references, the flip-flopping characters and the sing-song over-simplification, I found whole show a little too bang-on in its portrayal of international politics.

As the Haitian table lost their chairs in structural readjustments and the Mexicans had their table carted off in exchange for help in subduing the Zapatistas, I found myself experiencing an all-too familiar sense of guilty relief that I happened to plunk myself down in a comfy first-world nation. Which is probably not the take-home message that Social Justice Committee volunteer performers were going for.

The best part of the evening was definitely the ensemble of accompanying musicians, especially Mynah Marie on the accordion and the Guinean guy who wrapped up the show with sweet, mellow vocals and resonant string-plucking (too bad neither his name, nor that of his musical instrument made it into the program).