Gerard Harris. Let’s Start a County! Tarragon Theatre, Toronto July 2015, © Michel Botman Photography
A Wimbledon Final of the spoken word.
Interactive performances are not new. Unfortunately, they frequently fail to raise their interactive parts to the level of the scripted core. There are often uncomfortably agonizing labor pains to deliver elusive greatness. This is not the case in “Let’s Start a Country” – or a small continent, as is the case in Gerard Harris’ latest theatrical masterpiece. The play overflows with a number of unique representations composed, arranged, directed and interpreted by Gerard Harris and his partners in crime. On the grass court of the English language, Gerard serves and volleys with the minds of his audience with velocity and virtuosity, sending balls, thoughts, questions and challenges to the public and catching them back with incomparable skill. Years of experience dueling in the Ligue d’Improvisation de Montréal, have sharpen Gerard’s sense of répartie. It is a thing of beauty – the boundless elegance of the creativity in motion, of wit in fast forward mode, of instant play and extemporization. Time falls continuously from elusive future to the oblivion of the past. It is in this intangible fracture that Gerard’s talent emerges. He never skips a beat and never misses a volley. He coins sizzling phrase, amusing play on words, and spirited ideas, all on the fly with the ease of an Olympic diver gliding through the air, water and spiritual elements. It is human nature in its most noble, something that restores your faith in intelligence and goodness and leaves you at the end a little breathless and somewhat conscious of your own limitations and inadequacies.
Glowing, impertinent, insolent. Simply brilliant!
Al Lafrance. Let’s Start a County! Tarragon Theatre, Toronto July 2015, © Michel Botman Photography
Gerard Harris and Holly Gauthier-Frankel. Let’s Start a County! Tarragon Theatre, Toronto July 2015, © Michel Botman Photography
Jeff Leard. Let’s Start a County! Tarragon Theatre, Toronto July 2015, © Michel Botman Photography
Al Lafrance, Gerrard Harris, Holly Gauthier-Frankel and Jeff Leard. Let’s Start a County! Tarragon Theatre, Toronto July 2015, © Michel Botman Photography
Click here for additional photographic highlights of the play.
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