PERFECTION by Mark Correia (Correia/SummerWorks) and THE CHEMICAL VALLEY PROJECT by Kevin Matthew Wong and Julia Howman (Broadleaf Theatre/SummerWorks). At the Scotiabank Studio. Aug 7 at 8 pm, Aug 9 at 8 pm, Aug 11 at 6 pm, Aug 12 at 1:45 pm, Aug 13 at 6:30 pm. See listing. Rating: NNNN (Perfection) NNNN (Chemical Valley).
This is arguably the oddest double bill pairing at this year’s festival, but both shows are strong in their own right.
In Perfection, magician Mark Correia plays a gung-ho, Tony Robbins-type performer who is determined to deliver a perfect show. Of course, that’s impossible, as he proves in the first of many dangerous slapstick stunts near the beginning.
I’m not sure Correia needs the gimmick of his title. It seems like a distraction – an enormous sleight of hand, if you will – to distract us from looking too closely at how he’s achieving his magic.
Even when wiping out, Correia has a slick, polished stage presence and he’s comfortable with crowd work. His tricks themselves – among them an audience cellphone bit, a Russian roulette scenario involving a paper cup and a nail, and (most impressive) getting out of a straightjacket – are impressive and entertaining on their own.
After a prolonged cleaning up of the stage, Kevin Matthew Wong presents The Chemical Valley Project, a thoughtful and inspiring piece about Vanessa and Lindsay Gray, two sisters who are trying to protect their Indigenous community of Aamjiwnaang from the pollution from nearby Chemical Valley in Sarnia.
Wong’s presentation – co-created with Julia Howman – includes lots of information about the Valley itself, where 63 petrochemical factories pump out PCPs among other things and have caused medical problems (the stillborn rate in the city is much higher than average) and made Sarnia’s air quality the worst in the country.
Wong is sensitive to the idea of cultural appropriation, and so he lets the siblings talk for themselves in audio interviews in a video clip, he even shows them the work in progress and asks for suggestions, which he then implements. When one of the sisters chains herself to an Enbridge pipeline, he recounts her arrest and updates us on the sentencing.
In one of the more powerful sections, he also reflects on how that same oil pipeline ran through many key areas where he was growing up in Toronto.
Wong has a warm, generous and fully present delivery style, and Howman’s imaginative production design goes beyond a slide presentation to create something with a grassroots, humane feel.
This activist artwork doesn’t quite feel finished, but of course the issue is ongoing in fact, Wong provides information about upcoming events at the end of the show.
