Video Cabaret presents THE GREAT WAR

In the same week that "Spiderman" is playing to its first audiences in New York, "The Great War" , one of a series of seven plays chronicling the history of Canada,  is ending its run in Toronto.
And it is as unique as the Julie Taymor million million dollar extravaganza that is bashing Broadway  audiences senseless with flying and noise and special effects.... and leaving them to imagine NOTHING.

The brilliant cast of seven portrays countless characters, dressed wildly in clothes made from bottle tops and old furnishing fabrics and  magically whipped on and off; beards, wig , hats and props changed in a silent flash. In the amazing black box with its clever series of stepped areas there are no sets. Only a series of wonderfully placed spotlights that the characters walk in and out of in a faultless dance. And because the total blackouts are SO complete the mind's eye is left with hilarious or shocking images to contemplate.  The horror of the 1914-18 madness is expressed even more graphically and poetically than the Joan Littlewood revue, "Oh, What a Lovely War!" in the 60's.
The sound track is brilliant....from gun shots to match strikes.... which the cast knows backwards and mimes impeccably, making the imagination work even more.  Give me this $15 ticket over the $140 they are charging  to watch unrecognisable human puppets flung about at the end of a rope.
The director/writer is Michael Hollingsworth.
I would love to try a mounting a production like this in Australia when we return.  tt