Review: trace
iPhoto caption: Jeff Ho in trace. Photo by Dahlia Katz
trace
Factory Theatre
By Jeff Ho. Directed by Nina Lee Aquino. At Factory Theatre. Runs until December 3.
Strong, fearless women factor heavily in actor/musician Jeff Ho’s life. In trace, Ho celebrates three generations of women and how their steely, uncompromising spirit fortified and ensured the existence of his family.
Ho’s great-grandmother was the pillar. She was a single mother who left China for Hong Kong with her two sons during the Japanese invasion of WWII. Similarly, Ho’s single mother left Hong Kong for Canada with her two sons in tow. The play jumps in time and location as we follow the lives of these women, all played by Ho. In his energetic, lively performance, he flits from one character to the next, modulating his voice and accent as he takes on each role.
Ho is a gifted musician as well as a fine actor, and trace is presented as if it were a piece of music with a prelude, five movements, and a coda. Each musical section is projected on the back wall of the theatre. Truth be told I could not distinguish any difference in the style of the performance as I would have in a piece of music.
There are two pianos, one on either side of the playing space, with various platforms of different heights on the stage. Ho moves from platform to platform as he segues from character to character, shafts of light pouring on him as he goes, to beautiful effect. When he stops to play the piano, the music he makes offers emotional texture to the story.
The pianos even act as characters themselves, answering questions with a harsh note here, a ping there. It’s very clever. There is also inventiveness in using the pianos as props. In one scene, Ho was depicting a relative who worked in a hospital and had to clean up a patient who had soiled himself. Ho opened the top of the piano and, with a cloth, reached down, simulating the movement wiping the patient’s bum.
Telling this story is a huge undertaking, with all of the different characters and time periods, as well as trying to keep track of the Chinese names—foreign to my ear—and the characters to which they applied. Ho’s writing is funny, caustic, thoughtful, and informative, and his performance is impressive. But in spite of all that, I found trace often incomprehensible.
Aside from his growling great-grandmother, who magically conjured up cigarettes every time she appeared, I often couldn’t tell which character was speaking. I found this frustrating and would have loved a list of each character Ho played, along with their ages and their relationship to one another, to help me follow the story.
trace is a herculean effort by Jeff Ho, but definitely not a successful night at the theatre.
For tickets or more information, click here.
Lynn Slotkin
Lynn is the former theatre critic for Intermission, and currently writes reviews on her blog The Slotkin Letter. She also does theatre reviews, interviews, and commentary for CIUT Friday Morning (89.5 FM). She was a theatre reviewer for CBC's Here and Now for ten years. On average, she sees 280 shows a year.
LEARN MORE
iPhoto caption: Kayla Sakura Charchuk, Jay Leonard Juatco, Kimberly-Ann Truong, Jun Kung, and Raugi Yu in Cambodian Rock Band. Set design by Jung-Hye Kim, costume design by Stephanie Kong, lighting design by Itai Erdal. Photo by Moonrider Productions.
REVIEW: Cambodian Rock Band makes scintillating Canadian premiere at Vancouver’s Arts Club
Jumping back and forth through time, it weaves the story of a father-daughter relationship together with high-energy musical performances and meditations on the traumatic effects of the Cambodian genocide.
iPhoto caption: Photo of Tara Sky by Jeremy Mimnagh. Set design by Shannon Lea Doyle, costume design by Asa Benally, lighting design by Hailey Verbonac.
REVIEW: The Born-Again Crow is an ardent ode to unproductivity
Director Jessica Carmichael’s Toronto premiere production trucks along with the passionate force of an early-2000s emo rock hit, imbuing this systemic critique with rousing, playful life.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Kendra Epik.
REVIEW: House + Body’s Measure for Measure weds the beautiful with the troubling
House + Body provides few answers about how to resist (or further, dismantle) a corrupt government. But layered portrayals of the play’s central characters convey the emotional stakes of a system that allows for egregious abuses of power.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Red Snow Collective’s Carried by the River is still finding its flow
Playing in the Tarragon Theatre Extraspace, Carried by the River delivers visually striking images and impressive choreography but struggles to find emotional depth and cohesion.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Outside the March’s Performance Review is claustrophobic for all the right reasons
It’s up close and personal, with lots of eye contact and sometimes only inches of distance between playwright-performer Rosamund Small and the audience.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Against a bloody backdrop, Trident Moon pays homage to the power of resilience
Playing at Crow’s Theatre and set during the 1947 partition of India, the intense fictionalized drama offers a graceful depiction of several women’s high-stakes struggle to resist.
iPhoto caption: Marcel Stewart, Dan Mousseau, Christef Desir, Alex Bulmer, Shakura Dickson in The Story. Photo by Neil Silcox
It was frigid the night I saw the production, and when you are freezing and can’t feel your fingers or toes, time-wasting shenanigans wear thin.
iPhoto caption: Lena Maripuu, Graham Conway, and Peter Pan ensemble. Photo by Nicholas Porteous
Joy to the world—the most inventive, lively, whimsical production of Peter Pan has arrived for the holidays!
iPhoto caption: Robyn Stevan in The Mess. Photo by Dahlia Katz
Co-creators Mikaela Davies and Polly Phokeev have devised a short, complex, layered story of how the mess a person creates can affect those around them.
iPhoto caption: Company in the Grand Theatre's production of A Christmas Carol. Photo by Claus Andersen
Reviews: A Christmas Carol (x2)
Reviews of two productions of A Christmas Carol—Ross Petty Productions and the Grand Theatre, in London, Ont.—that couldn’t be more different.
iPhoto caption: David Schurmann and Carly Street in Heisenberg. Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann
Of the three productions I’ve seen of Heisenberg—on Broadway in New York, the West End in London, and here in Toronto—this one is the best.
Comments