Melyssa's Chalk

I always enjoy a good night out at the theatre!

That being said, In The Chamber was a new experience for me. I've never been to a show that was only monologues. While these may not have been the most interesting or entertaining for me, they did not discourage me from these types of shows forever. This was not because the performances weren't amazing (they were!) or because the work wasn't top notch (it was!), it was more a case of that I could not really relate to the pieces. I guess I just do not have enough life experience to fully enjoy what they were trying to say. Much of the crowd that was there (that were not CreCommers) were "more mature," so to speak, and they seemed to be loving it, Laughing at the jokes and nodding their heads to the deep insights of the men.

Don't get me wrong, I did understand the pieces, what was going on and what they were getting at, I just couldn't relate to them. I knew that they were both wanting to get out of a system that they were imprisoned in and I got that these were great epiphanies for these men.

At one point in Steven Ratzlaff's piece, Last Man in Puntarenas , he mentions "human error," which I found to be a sort of theme between the two pieces. In the first, Gordon Tanner's character, realizes that the company he works for is supplying equipment that can be dangerous for people and is cruel and incredibly harmful for hogs. The ex-wife of the man in the second one had feelings of guilt for rejecting medical assessment and checkups during her pregnancy, which resulted in the child dieing of disease. Both realized that what they thought were effective and efficient systems were harmful and fatal in the end.

I also really liked the concept of choosing awareness. Sometimes the facts that something is not what it seems, lays right under our noses and we choose to ignore them. In the first piece, the man got over that and had a great realization of what he had been doing.

Like I said, I thought they were both excellent pieces and both actors were brilliant. Had I more "life experience," I may have laughed when everyone else did.

I did, however, really enjoy the sets and the props and the style of performance of each piece. Who would have thought that each man alone on stage, with only a camera or balloons to talk to, could be captivating for 50 minutes. I'm sure it's been done, but I've never seen it, so I give it a thumbs up for sure.

Here are a couple of my favourite lines. They're not exactly what was said, but you get the idea.
-I want comfort and I fear uncomfort.
-I can no longer carry on work that I neither life or believe in.
-Health care is the anti-Christ
-I believe you to the point of being vulnerable.