Come on in, theatre fans, the water’s… fine?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/11/2023 (1078 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Usually, before a performance begins, an usher hands patrons a program and directs them to their seats. Audience members flip through the synopsis, send their last texts, make sure they don’t need to use the restroom. They settle in. They get comfortable.

At Glad to Be Here — the latest experimental production by the roving troupe Theatre by the River, set in 2075, 30 years after an apocalyptic flood — there was no time for comfort.

As “ambassadors” were welcomed to an “information session” in the flood-protected mecca of “New Winnipeg,” they were handed a life-jacket, an omen of treacherous waters ahead.

From the moment the door at the Portage Avenue Church swung open, the Theatre by the River team created a palpable sense of unease and suffocation, cultivating an aura of uncertainty and unpredictability unlike any other local show in recent memory. Glad to be Here is a completely original surprise and a reminder of the value of artistic risk-taking by performers and audience members alike.

Actor Michael Lawrenchuk, playing Malcolm, one of the spokespeople of New Winnipeg, promised the ambassadors they were about to embark on a journey worth taking — the only time his or any other performer’s words could be fully trusted.

A satire of conformity directed by Jacquie Loewen, Glad to Be Here was fashioned by playwright Ginny Collins as a propaganda tourism campaign for New Winnipeg, the portion of the city spared by the great flood. The rest of the country has been destroyed, forcing nomads to seek out refuge within what’s described as a Prairie sanctuary, with ample vegetation and potable water.

For the first time since that aquatic calamity, visitors have been invited to see behind the walls.

After receiving a “water purification tablet,” the ambassadors sat in the church foyer, forced to listen to a sales pitch by a team of “lifeguards” in wetsuits. In the crowd were skeptical outsider Ambassador Jade (Lara Rae) and an antsy man (Jordan Phillips) with an explosive secret the powers-that-be would rather keep under wraps.

Past the foyer, a curtain was drawn, sending the ambassadors down a dimly lit hallway filled with recordings of those lost to the flood. In the dark, the ambassadors fumbled around, heightening the feeling of disorientation before the lifeguards distributed to each visitor a pair of headphones.

With full control over the communications systems, the propaganda went into overdrive, with a charming spokesperson (Rodrigo Beilfuss) promising milk and honey through a series of video transmissions. Then the audio system was intercepted with a warning: don’t drink the water.

Once the transmission ended, the ambassadors were shuffled back to where they started to meet Cassandra (Patricia Hunter), the leader of New Winnipeg, and to find cool glasses of water waiting for them. Then the lifeguards delivered to each guest a delicious, dry slab of Jeanne’s cake.

Watching the ambassadors make their individual decisions — to drink or not to drink, to indulge in a local delicacy or to resist — proved the efficacy of Collins’ writing, Loewen’s directing and the performers’ commitment to the multimedia production. Under the spell of manufactured consent, the ambassadors were made to doubt their own realities and truths.

Many ambassadors stared at their glass of water as if it were a foreign substance, because for the duration of the performance, it was.

That’s how believable this production was and that’s how vulnerable we all are to disinformation in both New Winnipeg and the one we live in.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com