FLOATING by Hugh Hughes and Sioned Rowlands (Hoipolloi/World Stage). At Enwave Theatre (231 Queens Quay West). To Saturday (February 19), 8 pm. $15-$35. 416-973-4000. See listing. Rating: NNN
Floating is a sometimes charming piece of fantasy, a tall story about the Welsh island of Anglesey breaking loose from the bridge that moors it to the mainland and drifting out to sea.
Told and enacted in a deceptively simple way by creators Hugh Hughes and Sioned Rowlands, the piece begins when we enter the theatre: we see an old woman knitting (the clicking of her needles is amplified through the venue) and smiling at people making their way to their seats.
It’s a folksy, affable start, and that tone continues through the production. Hughes gives us a bit of a lesson in Welsh, advises us of the show’s elements, including its themes, and then steps into the action as himself.
He and Rowlands (who plays all the other characters) tell us the story of the island’s separation from Wales and the efforts made to maintain its independence, guided by a self-appointed leader, Mr. Morgan, Hughes’ former primary school headmaster. The telling involves video, slides, flow charts, old home movies and a lot of non-intrusive audience participation. That old woman at the start, for instance, is Hughes’s dear departed grandmother, and he passes around the audience the wrestling magazines she loved to read.
Both performers enjoy the improvisation that feels built into the show in the case of Hughes, it allows for a bit of tongue-in-cheek send-up of the audience. At one point during opening night he invited people from the balcony to move down to empty seats in the orchestra, and when a few did, he needled them for interrupting the flow of the performance.
Hughes makes the point again and again that the story is about connecting and disconnecting – to or from the mainland, others, the past – and those larger ideas give the narrative a philosophical base. The two artists, though, are just as interested in the fun of the performance you can’t help but laugh at the device Hughes creates when he decides to swim off the island, one that will take care of the fatigue and hunger he’ll undergo in the cold North Atlantic waters.
There’s a touch of Pythonesque humour in the show, and some people loved all of its 90 minutes. I had fun but at times was less engaged than those around me – humour’s such an individual thing – but I admire the amiable performers and the clever staging.
