Review: ITALIAN MIME SUICIDE at The Theatre Centre Speaks Passionately About a Silent Art

ITALIAN MIME SUICIDE, in a new production by Bad New Days playing at The Theatre Centre, is both more tongue-in-cheek and more serious than its name suggests. The show, written by Adam Paolozza and directed by Paolozza and Kari Pederson, was inspired by the 2003 suicide of an Italian mime who felt that his craft was no longer respected.

The play explores the "dying" art of mime, or "Mime-capital-M," as a subset of the supposedly dying art of theatre, both acts of creation that thrive on a live representation of the human condition. Not a cohesive story but a series of vignettes flitting through moments of satire and reflection, the hour-long show is mime for our modern, jaded world. Its alternate states of earnestness and irony echo the precarious balance of comedy in tragedy that the mime seeks to achieve in a deliberate loss of dignity for entertainment.

One of the strengths of ITALIAN MIME SUICIDE is its soundscape, composed by Arif Mirabdolbaghi and performed by SlowPitchSound (Cheldon Paterson). Walking out dressed like Pierrot in a paper crown and jeans (costumes by Evgenia Mikhaylova), the latter takes a soulful Italian ballad and splinters it on a DJ's turntable. He warps and scratches it into something almost unrecognizable but still hauntingly melodic before acknowledging the audience and inviting us to join the show.

Spinning musical backdrops that draw from various influences, including jazz and a cappella, he adds a majestic note to simple actions, such as the mimes becoming gorillas or staring at a rapidly-encroaching, projected sun. Like the music, the occasional sounds of actors' speech are often distorted, sped up and slowed down, to the point where simple, unvarnished talking feels like a surprise.

Paolozza's depressed mime forms the nucleic centre around which the three supporting players (Nicholas Eddie, Rob Feetham, and Ericka Leobrera) orbit. These supporting characters are also mimes who have their own independent scenes, but sometimes also serve as outsiders or critics of the form. I wanted to know more about their purpose and point of view as mimes in this world, as they all performed with compellingly crisp physicality, but largely remained malleable cyphers.

When Paolozza takes centre stage, however, his emotions and point of view are crystal clear. Initially, his inability to control his environment is represented by an exercise ball that consistently escapes him, to growing hilarious effect. His conflict is written in both the rapidly shifting expressions on his face - from feigned joy to utter blankness - and the projected English captions to his Italian internal monologue about the "long, slow, merry death of theatre."

While the mime tableaux are visually inventive, the show is in its comfort zone and most entertaining in its direct satire of the talking heads that run rampant in the arts scene. On the other hand, like the ball that causes Paolozza to trip and tumble, the moments of sincerity unbalance the production; they're welcome, but deliberately uneasy.

In the end, it's hard to figure out completely what to make of ITALIAN MIME SUICIDE. It mime-walks a tightrope between cohesiveness and chaos, philosophy and physicality. It feels like a bubbling cauldron of ideas that isn't quite full enough for its size, yet at the same time it's thoroughly enjoyable for the entire hour, and often delightful.

So perhaps let's just say that, unlike the weary acquiescence of its main character to a cliché mime performance request, this is a show that refuses to get trapped in an imaginary box.

How to Get Tickets:

Bad New Days' ITALIAN MIME SUICIDE is playing at The Theatre Centre (1115 Queen St. West) until May 1, 2022.

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit https://tickets.theatrecentre.org/TheatreManager/1/tmEvent/tmEvent335.html

Photo Credit: Najim Chaoui

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