Friday, April 15, 2011

Taking on The Arminator

This week I saw The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz.

Awarding winning novelist Armin Wiebe tries his hand at playwriting with a project that he says wasn’t enough to make a novel out of: a strange blend of zany Russian antics, Mennonite accents, and secret lesbian vibes. To me, those elements have trouble coming together.

Wiebe obviously tried to create something unique, but the play made the characters carry most of that load in the absence of great storytelling. In the large gaps that resulted between plot points, I sat quietly waiting and watched a shell-shocked Russian play a broken piano, and a Mennonite girl yell in poor English about how she wants a baby. It seems that they were hoping the audience would find the German jokes funny enough to maintain interest, but I was tired of backwards phrasing and unknown German words shortly into the first act. Perhaps because no one has ever “learned” me no German words outside of playing Wolfenstein? Mien leben!

Many of these story gaps featured the Mennonite couple, Obrum and and Susch Kehler, agonizing over whether or not the ever-befuddled Blatz should remain a guest in their quaint prairie home, but the worst part is that the audience is forced to feel their agony as well. Will he stay, won’t he, just make a decision about it already! Instead, this entire issue goes nowhere; even at the end of the play Blatz is still hammering away on the keys, and people still can’t make up their mind about whether they want him or not. In between discussions on this topic, Susch confides in her sexually confused friend Teen, instead of addressing the problems head on. It’s like high school secrets in a one-roomed schoolhouse.

Wiebe said in a classroom question period later that the play started from a true anecdote that happened to his grandfather, and the rest is his own fiction. I’ll admit, that true story was pretty good, and definitely my favourite part of the play. After Obrum accidently uses poison ivy to do some forest paperwork, he’s left with a rash in an already sensitive area that makes wearing pants an impossible ordeal. Onstage, it resulted in some laughs with Obrum’s well-acted humiliation and some artfully done close calls on full frontal nudity. I smiled. Plus it reminded me of this:

Apart from saying this, Wiebe seemed very unimpressed with speaking to audiences, especially in a talkback session immediately after the play. Some of the questions were barely answered, like not giving any background information on his decision to have an emerging homosexual woman as barely a side note to the play’s plot, and offering no response to the question of his inspiration behind “all the sex” in the play.

Having had these types of sessions with creative writers all throughout the past school year, I wouldn’t be surprised by more hushed answers and dull feedback. But as we learned from our session, Wiebe was once an instructor at Red River College! Shouldn’t he be more comfortable expressing himself to a class of students, especially on matters concerning his own work and processes? I’m sure students would have found it hard to learn under an instructor who can’t explain why he makes decisions in his writing.

Overall, I’d give this play 2 out of 5. Although annoying, the accents seemed very accurate, and the actors, set, and lighting worked well. But as for the plot, it barely moves.

Here’s an excerpt from Wiebe’s message in the production’s program:

“The characters wrestle with doubts and fears as they act or resist their impulses: Can a man reach to heaven if he never looks to the sky? Can a woman only bake with what a man has to give? Can a woman hunger so much that she will reach where she should not reach? … “


The characters definitely ask all of these questions, but don’t watch this play if you’re expecting any answers.

2 comments:

  1. Yeah I think I agree with a lot of what your saying here. Personally, I enjoyed the play and thought that I understood it... Until he started answering questions about it.

    I think the play lost meaning for me because he gave such wishy-washy answers to straight forward questions.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ooo yeah that's a good theory! i guess sometimes it's better not knowing.

    ReplyDelete

Don't censor yourself baby! Lay it on me.