the lowest show on earth by Scott Thompson and Paul Bellini, directed by Ted Dykstra, with Thompson. Presented by Clear Channel Entertainment at the New Yorker (651 Yonge). Runs to February 3, Thursday-Friday and Sunday 8 pm, Saturday 7:30 and 10 pm. $34.50-$39.50. 416-870-8000. Rating: NN
Rating: NN
i’ve often thought many gay men were misogynist, but nothing prepared me for the curtain-closer to Scott Thompson’s The Lowest Show On Earth.Given that title, I’m sure Thompson and co-writer Paul Bellini feel they’re tsk-tsking us for our bourgeois assumptions about what’s “low.”
But the crude violation of a woman’s naked body for the sake of, as his famous character Buddy Cole says, “science,” goes beyond social satire and enters the arena of the puerile.
Thompson is a watchable, energetic performer, and the show works best as an indictment of our celebrity- and victim-obsessed world.
His dark parody about a maniacal grief counsellor is the only section that feels fresh.
But the show is riddled with a sloppy structure and scenes that go nowhere, including the charming but flaccid bit that got him ousted from the Griffin Poetry Prize Awards ceremony. In the end, Thompson’s show isn’t so much low as dull. glenns@nowtoronto.com
jonkap@nowtoronto.com
