VideoCabaret, in association with Crow’s Theatre/(Everyone I Love Has) A Terrible Fate (Befall Them), written and performed by Cliff Cardinal, directed by Karin Randoja, Deanne Taylor Theatre, VideoCabaret, until Nov. 12. Tickets available here.
In the tradition of Grand Guignol and Theatre of the Absurd, where everything is meant to shock, comes Cliff Cardinal’s new solo show with the ungainly but graphic title, (Everyone I Love Has) A Terrible Fate (Befall Them).
And Robert, as the character is called, is not kidding. Literally, whenever he loves someone, or cares for something, a dreadful thing happens, and the litany of gory, and sometimes improbable deaths, keeps pounding the audience with grotesque images. The first response is to giggle, but so intense is Robert in the telling, so pitiful, so terrified, that you fall in step with his horrifying story.
The poor man has to steel himself against love, and it’s a gigantic struggle. Is there a demonic spirit at work, Robert wonders, and so do we. Just when you think you have heard the worst, something even more terrible happens, not to mention drug addictions and suicide attempts on Robert’s part.
Not only are dreadful things happening in Robert’s personal life, frightening occurrences are rocking the world outside such as asteroids smashing into earth. What could be the possible end of this seemingly impossible tale?
A Terrible Fate is another brilliant tour de force from one of Canada’s great actors. Cardinal brings to life these relationships with an awesome clarity, as well as enacting the various characters he encounters with a realism that is alarming. As an actor, Cardinal has the uncanny ability to look an audience member straight in the eye, as if he is talking just to you, which adds to the unsettling nature of the play.
JB Nelles’ set is intriguing. There are three panels, engraved with the words Love, Cursed and Fate, adorned with suitable descriptive images. Beneath each panel is a different chair, which Robert moves between in his telling. He spends most of his time, however, in the old, torn up recliner under Cursed for obvious reasons.
Experienced director Karin Randoja moves Cardinal around the set like a chess master, and has ensured that his body language is full of surprises. Raha Javanfar’s lighting pinpoints various images on the panels, and aspects of Robert’s body, adding to the fantastical nature of the show — as if the lighting itself is telling its own story. Sage Paul’s clever costume is a crumpled, not very clean suit, while sound designer Alex Williams has supplied the suitably ominous sound score.
There is a coldness to Robert, the obvious indifference of someone who has suffered beyond human endurance. He is also confrontational with the audience, daring us to challenge his parade of ghastly memories, but underneath bubbles that famous Cardinal wit, satire and irony. In his desperation, is Robert laughing at us as he spews out his torrent of words?
I see this play as a metaphor for the world and the worrisome geopolitics that exists today, or why perform this monologue? Otherwise, it would just be a grisly display of an imagination gone wild, and Cardinal is too great a playwright for that shallow an approach.
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