What the Festival is Toronto’s annual weekend of clowns, drag and puppets so it’s a bit niche. This year it took place at the relatively new arts hub Youngplace (that disused school at Shaw and Argyle) which is now surprisingly spiffy. I saw two of the four shows offered; Drag Me to the Opera, and Two.2.Mango’s Hansal and Greteel.
Drag Me to the Opera
In Drag Me to the Opera Calgary tenor Steven Morton, in his persona of Aida Cupcake, narrates his life story. It’s the not unfamiliar one of the singer who spends ten years or so trying to prove that they might “plausibly pursue” an operatic career without quite making it to the top of the greasy pole or, perhaps more accurately, the bottom of the next one.
To anyone familiar with the opera world it will seem a familiar tale peopled by dismissive agents, unhelpful voice teachers and university departments that want to keep the numbers up. The act though is rooted in a remark that a mentor made to him just as his career was not quite making it. To whit, if he wanted to hone his technique as a tenor he should learn some soprano arias. Which he has. And so Aida Cupcake was born.
The story is told partly through narration but also through well known soprano arias sung (mostly) in English and as they are mostly standards that sounded a bit weird to me but made sense for the intended audience. So we got “Der Hölle Rache”, “Je veux vivre”, “Voi che sapete”, “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle”. Dido’s lament, “Come scoglio” and “Vissi d’arte”. Finally, just because, he sang “Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête!” complete with cartwheels across the stage. The high Cs were there but sounded a bit more like a distressed tom cat than Juan Diego Florez. Actually he’s a much better singer than would expect in a drag act. Good, enough, indeed, to sing in the Calgary Opera chorus but one can see why he’s taken the route he has.
Visually the act is great fun with multiple costume changes, some rather startling wigs and a splendidly comic opera uniform for the last number. Piano accompaniment is pre-recorded but it sounded fine over the sound system in the rather plush Small World Music Theatre. Worth seeing if you get a chance.
Hansal and Greteel
Two.2.Mango are the Toronto based duo Sachin Sharma and Shreya Parashar. last year I saw their show Colonial Circus and loved it so I was definitely ken to see them again. Hansal and Greteel is rather different but very interesting. It doesn’t owe much to the Grimm brothers beyond the characters being children with dodgy parents. In fact the beginning is weirdly suggestive of a sort of kindergarten version of Spring Awakening. The two ten year olds, in not quite identical outfits, do a class science project on human anatomy which goes too far and they are sent away to a rather unpleasant boarding school. Here they explore their dreams and ambitions and the hope that their parents will let then go home again.
Which all sounds terribly serious but this is Two.2.Mango and the show is full of very funny clowning and all manner of ways of pulling the audience into the show in a mildly embarrassing fashion. They are terrific physical actors. Sachin, in particular, can make his body do some very strange things. Both of them are superb at reading the audience and deciding who to pick on! The lighting and sound are both very well done and it’s a fun way to spend fifty minutes or so. I’d go see them again.
