Ryan Parker
Métis Mutt
Shelton Elter
MÉTIS MUTT by Sheldon Elter (Native Earth). At Aki Studio, Daniels Spectrum (585 Dundas East). Runs to February 5, $15-$25, Tuesday pwyc. See listing. 461-531-1402. Rating: NNN
Sheldon Elter’s Métis Mutt traces a trajectory from debilitating self-doubt to hopeful self-awareness.
In the process, the writer/performer shares an involving autobiographical story, moving and entertaining, about his mixed-race family: native father, stepfather, brother and mother, the last seen by some as white despite her own mixed-race background.
A comedy and theatre artist (he appeared on the APTN sketch show Caution: May Contain Nuts), Elter draws on both performance backgrounds for Mutt.
You’ll cringe in the show’s first few minutes, a stand-up routine from Elter’s past that’s stereotyped, vulgar, racist and violent. No comments from the audience, though, could be more upsetting that Elter’s negative attitude toward himself.
The show moves back and forth through the performer’s life, introducing multiple characters he adeptly creates with body and words. It would be helpful early on to know how some of the people connect to Elter, though we eventually understand the relationships.
His tale, which the performer has been polishing since 2001, involves poverty and drug alcohol and domestic abuse. Upsetting as it is to see and hear some of the details, there’s a positive strength in the storytelling.
A key narrative through-line involves his violent father, a man he fears, sometimes hates and yet misses; that thorny emotional knot is perhaps the script’s most touching element.
The material could be shaped a little better. There are one or two songs too many, a great number of important events is packed into the last 15 minutes and there’s a too-early reveal of one important element.
The show, directed by Ron Jenkins, features a clever, suggestive visual design by Tessa Stamp (set and lighting) and T. Erin Gruber (projections): part stone circle, part dream catcher and part animal skin stretched on a frame. Aaron Macri’s sound design is another plus.
Elter’s last stand-up number is a masterful reversal of the first; it repudiates past behaviour and reveals a new honesty. He offers it, beautifully, as a gift to himself and to the audience.