PLUCKED by Rachel Ganz. Theatre Centre Mainspace. Aug 6 at 1 pm, Aug 7 at 9:15 pm, Aug 9 at 7:45 pm, Aug 10 at 4 pm, Aug 12 at 5 pm, Aug 14 at 6 pm. Theatre Centre Mainspace. See listing. Rating: NNNN
Writer Rachel Ganz and director Carly Chamberlain’s high-octane absurdist barn-yard allegory about the problems with patriarchy gets very dark and very dirty very quickly (the opening bit about plus-sized women and blow jobs made one patron bolt for the door).
But the strong cast nails Ganz’s hilarious weirdo X-rated dialogue and sketches a nightmarish portrait of an egg-obsessed family of male farmers who zoomorphize their wives into chickens and literally coop them up. Fans of the absurdist genre will find lots of odd-ball left-field stuff to like here, but the heart of the extended metaphor is a strong take-down of traditional masculinity and the systemic inter-generational cycles of inequality that perpetuate it.
Chamberlain keeps the unpredictable action rolling at a manic pace, and contrasts disturbing bits exploring incest, torture, murder, cannibalism and suicide with tongue-in-cheek bluegrass hoe-downs.
See interview with Ganz here.