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Culture Stage

The Great War

THE GREAT WAR written and directed by Michael Hollingsworth, with Greg Campbell, Richard Alan Campbell, Richard Clarkin, Kerry Ann Doherty, Mac Fyfe, Anand Rajaram and Dylan Roberts (VideoCabaret). At the Cameron House (408 Queen West). Opens tonight (Thursday, May 6) for a limited run, Tuesday-Saturday 8 pm, Sunday 2:30 pm. $15-$30. 416-703-1725. See listing.


Richard Alan Campbell finally gets to wear a dress, and he couldn’t be happier.[rssbreak]

He does it in The Great War, the latest instalment of VideoCabaret’s The History Of The Village Of The Small Huts, Michael Hollingsworth’s monumental overview of Canada’s past.

The play covers Canada’s sometimes reluctant involvement in the First World War. “The war to end all wars” is a recurrent theme on Toronto stages these days, with Soulpepper having just closed two plays on the subject.

But Hollingsworth’s scripts are unique, not just in the amount of incisive material he crams into them, but also in their satiric, buffoon-like style. Heroes are rare in his take on history.

“There’s a new darkness in this show,” says Campbell, who’s done four previous Hut productions. “I think it’s because Michael has put characters into the trenches and allows the audience to see all their horrors. We focus on a quartet of men – a pair of upper-middle class friends who become officers and two rural, working-class men – who could be any one of us.

“Over the course of the play, they go from having an innocent belief in the importance of the war to being disillusioned and damaged by what they’ve seen and experienced in battle.”

Still, given the playwright’s comic skills, there are laughs as well.

“Some of the figures are cartoonish, but even in them you can see people’s emotional impulses as they try to deal with what’s going on.”

Among the eight characters Campbell plays – the production doesn’t give the actors much chance to breathe – are fussy, ambitious politician Arthur Meighen and Arthur Currie, who becomes commander of the Canadian troops.

“I think Currie is my favourite, because he was a good guy who really did try to minimize casualties. No one knew, at first, that soldiers were going up against machine guns and poison gas. When he saw the insane ideas that the more senior British officers had, he tried to convince them to modernize their efforts or at least strategize better.”

As in previous VideoCab shows, one of this production’s highlights will be Astrid Janson and Sarah Armstrong’s costumes, Brad Harley’s props and Alice Norton’s wigs.

The word “outrageous” could have been coined for these designs, which include a train and a tank, all squeezed into the small stage area.

“I get to wear a fat suit as Currie, but I really like my costume as Henri Bourassa: it’s blue with fleur-de-lys decorations, and I feel like I’m wearing blue snakeskin.”

And his dress?

Campbell wears it to play Mabel, one of two women employed in a munitions factory.

“Not surprisingly, they’re working hard and not being appreciated. The most difficult part of their job is when people arrive to deliver a telegram. Every woman in the factory fears that it bears news of her husband’s death.”

jonkap@nowtoronto.com

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