10th Canadian Challenge - 21st Review - The Prescription Errors

This will be a realatively short review of The Prescription Errors by Charles Demers.  I stumbled across this book entirely randomly at Robarts (while pondering why someone had removed almost the entire shelf of George F. Walker's plays) and decided that it was worth reading a short novel set in Vancouver.  Demers is a bit of a notable figure around Vancouver, an activist and comedian (an unlikely pairing to be sure).  He is also the author of Vancouver Special, a book of non-fiction essays on Vancouver, written from a progressive perspective.  I remember hearing about this book, but I haven't read it.  Perhaps I will tackle it next year.

It is worth noting that while the majority of The Prescription Errors is focused on Daniel, a left-wing underemployed man inflicted with OCD, there are recurring chapters about a stand-up comic, Ty, who is filling in for fellow Canadian voice artist, Al Sampson, on a cartoon show vaguely modelled on The Simpsons.  While I understood how Demers wanted the two strands to come together (and perhaps he wanted to use what he knew about the local comedy scene), I thought it was kind of distracting and unnecessary.

Anyway, the main story is about Daniel and his compulsion to read about medical technology (that might help him cure his OCD).  The weird thing is that several people sort of keep trying to intervene in his life, but it isn't until he starts seeing real suffering (his landlord is undergoing painful medical interventions to be a bone marrow donor to his estranged brother and his cousin's partner is on the verge of a breakdown when her children's book is being censored) that he is able to gain some insights into his condition and get some relief.  It does seem surprising that he could be "fixed" this easily.  As it happens, this is a largely autobiographical novels, and Demers has continued to write about his particular compulsions in his latest book of essays, The Horrors (see interview here), where he explains he didn't do the hand-washing or the counting, but just lived with overwhelming feelings of guilt (that he would hurt someone or was going to become a pedophile).

In any event, during the course of the novel at least, his attention is fixed outward on his cousin, Sara, her partner, Nicole, and their son Robeson.  Nicole has written a children's book on lesbian turtles, and there is a parents group (led by a pastor) in Surrey who want this book to be banned from the school library system.  This is causing quite a bit of stress.  One of the details of The Prescription Errors, which is presumably fictional but feels accurate, is that there is a gay/lesbian bookstore in Vancouver that is organizing a counter-protest, but 1) they take forever to gear up and 2) they have their rally in Vancouver rather than Surrey!

There are quite a few details that Demers manages to squeeze in about the contradictions of living in Vancouver (I assume he fits in even more in Vancouver Special).  You have the aging hippie landlords, the rising inequality in the city, dealing with the SkyTrain and the bus, the cheap pizza places downtown (in fact there is an interesting discussion of these in the book around whether the majority of these places are just fronts to launder drug money, since they couldn't actually be making a profit), the easy access to marijuana, etc.  So this book may be of interest to anyone who lived in Vancouver since roughly 2000.  The book was written slightly too early to cover the impact of the Olympic Games or the current mayor's fascination with adding bike lanes.

Maybe the most notable aspect of the novel is that it starts off feeling fairly angry (or at least angst-y), but it has a much gentler and forgiving ending than I was expecting.  Maybe this is just a temporary lull (before OCD compulsions kick in again) or a momentary state of grace where Daniel feels nobler and more connected to others, but it was a bit of a relief for me that the book didn't end with some huge tragic event (or at least for Daniel and his extended family).

Topsy-turvy (theatre) season

I already mentioned how I was fairly disappointed with Tarragon's season next year.  Probably the highlight is Hannah Moscovitch's Bunny.  I'm glad it's getting a remount, and I imagine a lot of people will rush out to see this, but it isn't for me.

So Canadian Stage has just announced its 2017-18 season, and it looks a lot more interesting to me than its current season (or Tarragon's next season).  That said, I will still probably only see two shows, though there are two others that are at least worth considering.  I'll get to that in a minute.

I'm probably not going to Shakespeare in High Park.  For the tragedy, they are doing King Lear, and I just don't see how they can do that justice in 90 minutes.  For the comedy, it is Twelfth Night.  I do like Twelfth Night, but I have seen it at the Fringe in 2015 and then in early 2017 done by Shakespeare Bash'd.  So that is probably enough times in recent memory, though perhaps I shall end up taking my son, since I think it is one of Shakespeare's best comedies, and I did say that I should expose him to it.  I'll decide on that later.

Anyway, I have been running around seeing which cities will host the touring company of Karam's The Humans.  It turns out Canadian Stage has the Toronto rights -- and apparently will end up scooping Vancouver's Art Club for Candian premiere in Feb. 2018.  While there is still a bit of cachet in seeing it in Pittsburgh right around Thanksgiving (the play is set during Thanksgiving), that is frankly fairly silly (with a big carbon footprint to go along), so I'll plan on going to see this here in Toronto.

I am also fairly interested in Jordan Tannahill's Declarations, so I expect to see this next winter.

A play that I think might be interesting, but just isn't for me, is Simon Stephen's Heisenberg.  In some ways, he has been mining the same territory since Harper Regan, and it's getting a bit threadbare by now.  But really the deal-breaker is this idea of an attractive woman at a train station throwing herself at a strange man at least 25 years her senior.  I just am so sick of this weird Hollywood contrivance or wish-fulfillment or what have you.  I honestly don't care how the play justifies it, it is a ridiculous, overplayed trope.  And frankly the playwright doesn't sound nearly as clever as he thinks he is, if this review is accurate.

What is interesting is they have followed my advice (only a year later) and are going to be staging Caryl Churchill's Love and Information in April 2018.  I think they'll do a fine job, though they'll probably go overboard on the sound and visual effects.  At this point, I think I'll enjoy the straight-forward staging of this play that will be part of Toronto Fringe this summer, but if I love the play, I will consider going a second time.

With only two plays, I can't get a subscription, but I am still quite excited about these two.  No question for the right audience, combining those two and Heisenberg and Love and Information will make a perfectly reasonable subscription.  Anyway, I've got to run now.

Edit (3/7): One that is pretty consistent is that I am generally uninterested in Mirvish productions, though sometimes one catches my attention.  Somewhat strangely, they are bringing back Disgraced, which I didn't think did all that well.  All the way into next winter (Feb. 2018) Come From Away is coming back to Toronto.  I'll see if I can score some half-way reasonable tickets on this return engagement.  On its pre-Broadway visit, it was only here for a few weeks and there were almost no seats in the range of what I was willing to pay.

Mission (Im)possible

Just a short note really that the Toronto Short Story contest closes today at 5 pm.  I entered two years ago (at least I think so) with the short story version of Straying South (incidentally the first piece of mine accepted for Sing-for-your-Supper).  This year I translated Finding Mr. Mouse (another SFYS piece) into a short story.  I think it works fairly well, though naturally it is extremely dialogue-heavy.

I ran over after work on Monday, but turned up around 7:30.  The building is supposedly only open until 7 pm.  I was pretty sure if I tried to get back on Tuesday over lunch, something would come up and I would miss out.  (And it seemed already too late to try to mail it, though perhaps they are working off the date posted rather than date received.)

I was lucky in that someone came out just as I was looking around for an alternate entrance, and I got into the lobby.  The security guard was totally blasé and told me where to drop off the packet.  A bit anticlimactic,* I suppose, but I'm glad it went in.  It would be great to win, but I think that's unlikely.

In terms of my other creative writing, I am sort of splitting my time between Final Exam and The Study Group.  When those are done, I think I'll type up my notes for Straying South and see if I can write the next section or two and start getting that wrapped up.

* Maybe I should have mentioned that I managed to get my finger caught in the lid when I opened the box to drop off my envelope, but fortunately it wasn't really stuck.  That would have been too humiliating.

Odious characters, pt. 3

I suppose at the very least odious characters are memorable.  I've written about them already here and here.  For me, it is always a thin line between characters who are driven by some monomania (Captain Ahab but also Ignatius J. Reilly) and who cause others around them distress or even pain through their thoughtlessness, and those who intentionally hurt others, sometimes out of spite but sometimes just out of boredom (Rebecca Sharp does come to mind).  I suppose it is true that there aren't too many leading characters that seek to physically harm others (particularly in first-person fiction), though there is A Clockwork Orange...

Looking just at the first-person fiction, there is a noted phenomenon where readers do tend to be more forgiving of characters written in the first person, since there is a collapsing of the distance between reader and character.  Quite a few authors have played around with this and sort of pushed the envelope in terms of just how far they wanted to go with "special pleading" on the part of their narrator, justifying some pretty terrible behavior.

Sometimes it is just the story of a character who is barely in control and may actually have quite a bit of internal turmoil (or even self-contempt), which leads him or her to drink too much or take too many drugs, and then lash out at those around.  I would generally lump Barney Panofsky from Richler's Barney's Version in this category.  I found him pretty unlikable and am quite sure I would have cut him out of my life, and not kept accepting his various excuses for why he had behaved so badly.

I'd forgotten how badly Joseph, the narrator of Bellow's Dangling Man, acts.  No question the strain of being in a terrible position (just waiting for the army to straighten out his enlistment papers but unemployable in the meantime) has gotten to him, but he still acts beastly towards others that are trying to help him out.  I've just never really cottoned to characters who refuse financial assistance or even charity from others out of some stiff-necked pride when their families are in trouble.  That completely turns me off, particularly when they then go on and on about it, crowing about how noble they are not to have to stoop or dissemble for a hand-out.  It is a totally false, misplaced pride.  (While I also dislike the fecklessness of characters who cannot be bothered with monetary issues like the mother in Molly Keane's Good Behaviour or pretty much everyone in The Cherry Orchard, this is still easier to take than harming one's family through misplaced pride.)  Even here it is a fine line.  Being overly and unjustly proud probably makes for an unpleasant and probably foolish and possibly tragic character, but not necessarily an odious one.  But Joseph definitely crosses that line.  He creates scenes in restaurants and then, while visiting his brother's family over the Christmas holiday, gets in a row with his niece and spanks her when she insults him.  He's really a piece of work.

There are more than a few parallels with Mickey Sabbath from Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater, including sneaking around in a girl's room and generally reeking of self-pity.  While Bellow buries the sexual connotations (not very deeply it should be said), Mickey Sabbath practically glories in his perversity.  The scene I am referring to has Sabbath coming down to Manhattan for the funeral of an old friend.  He is staying with another friend who tries to clean him up (figuratively and literally).  He then prowls through the girl's drawers, looking for underwear he can use to inspire him during a masturbation session.  He also fantasizes about having an affair with his friend's wife, and I think he tries to screw the maid, as well, but I can no longer remember if he is successful.  I'm fairly sure this scene is Roth's riff on Boudu Saved From Drowning, but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow.  (There's something about ingratitude that rubs me so much the wrong way that I haven't decided if I will ever watch Boudu, despite all the raves it has gotten over the years.)  Anyway, Roth doesn't stop there, but later in the novel (after being expelled from his friend's house and returning to New England) has Sabbath jerk off over his dead lover's grave a few times as a tribute.  What a guy...

I guess the best that can be said about such train wrecks as Joseph or Mickey or even Ignatius is that their antics mostly hurt themselves, though they often let down people around them who may still care about them.

There is another type of character who contributes to harming others, though it may be expressed as keeping some minority group in its place.  In almost every case I can think of, the author is trying to make a point about how racism works (and isn't condoning the actions of the racist characters).  That doesn't necessarily make it any easier to read about these acts.  Perhaps the most clever move is to write a first-person story about a reasonably intelligent but still actively racist character and subtly point out how their racism harms themselves as well as others, in addition to leading them to violate their own principles time and again.  This was handled very well in Ivan Vladislavic's The Restless Supermarket.  

I'm finding Gregor von Rezzori's Memoirs of an Anti-Semite to be very much in the same vein, though Rezzori cuts a bit deeper here, essentially claiming that pretty much all of the attitudes of the elite Germanic types from 1890s through 1930s were backwards and racist and useless for modern life.  In this book at any rate, I'd say the critique of Aryan-ness goes much further than Gunter Grass goes for example.  In this case, Rezzori may pile it on just a bit too thick to the point that, despite being written in the first person, I've gotten quite tired of the narrator and his obsession with Jews.  I definitely liked An Ermine in Czernopol better.

A Supposedly Fun Thing ...

I'll just start off by saying that this is not actually a post about David Foster Wallace's essay collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.  I haven't read it and don't have a lot of interest in it, though perhaps I'll read the title essay about going on a cruise.  I think the only cruise I would do would be the one that starts from Vancouver and goes up to Alaska.  I probably will never do that (especially as my wife has no interest at all in cruises) but that would be the one cruise I would potentially take.

This post is more about how I have started to trust my instincts more and be swayed less by other opinions.  That doesn't mean that I don't read book or theatre reviews, but I try to read between the lines.  Given the information presented to me, would I like to spend my time (and money!) this way?  I've actually started filtering a lot of stuff out.  I generally am not interested in melodramatic plays or even tragedies, though I make occasional exceptions.  I am not interested in plays about the plight of the inner city or ones that feature drug addicts and/or dealers.  I think I am reasonably open to experimental theatre, but not theatre that requires a lot of audience participation or anything that completely eschews plot or meaningful characters.  (There was a recent review where the reviewer hated some experimental piece of work (and I'm quite sure I would have as well), and then the reviewer was chided for not being open to post-theatrical work!  I am not interested in post-theatrical work, and I've already said many times I despise ADs and directors that rely on spectacle and give up on plot.)  I assume that sometimes I do miss out on something that would actually interest me, but most times when I go against my better judgement, I regret it.

I had very seriously considered going to the Honest Ed's farewell party on Friday, but I ended up working later than I expected and then went to Robarts to drop off some books.  So I just went home.  I'm still sort of debating whether I should stop by Honest Ed's tomorrow (Sunday).  I probably could before the performance starts (Streetcar Named Desire), but I'm leaning towards just checking out the marketplace and swap meet, which should be free and skipping the art maze.  I've seen some photos of the art maze, and most of the art is only of average quality (about what you'd see in a pop-up art gallery in a storefront on Queen St. W) but then no one asks you to pay $16 to go into a pop-up art installation.  Also, my knee is bothering me and I'm having more trouble than I should in climbing stairs, so that's two strikes against it.  I guess I'll just see how I feel tomorrow.  All I know is that I don't want to guilt myself into going and then feel stupid for wasting my money on something I suspect I won't actually like.  (The first photo below (sourced from BlogTo) is fairly whimsical but the second is dull, and my suspicion is that more of the art will fall into the second category...)
 

There are definitely more than a few books that I should have stopped partway through, but that's a topic for another day.

I'm still bemused by Tarragon asking some of its loyal subscribers to subscribe to the upcoming season completely blind, with no information other than there would be a lot of musical theatre (something I generally avoid).  I'm certainly glad I held off, since when they announced the season there really wasn't anything I wanted to see.  I realize that sounds harsh, but they're bringing back Mustard (which seems to be a pale echo of Mr. Marmalade), a musical version of Hamlet, some play about a tree-hugging activist and then Undercover, which puts a random audience member on stage to try to solve a murder mystery.  This last one in particular is far too post-theatrical to my taste.*  I will say that Hannah Moscovitch’s Bunny (in a transfer from Stratford) got amazing reviews, but when I dug a bit deeper, it basically is about a woman who can't and doesn't want to commit to a single relationship but then sort of wonders why her emotional life is a mess as she juggles four men.  One could certainly argue that men get to play the dashing heel and are not punished, but I don't like plays (or movies) about playboys either.  I just know I would end up completely annoyed after seeing this play, no matter the critical consensus that it is an amazing piece of work.  So I suspect I will not be going to a single Tarragon play in their 2017-18 season.  Too bad.

* I started cracking on this with a co-worker, saying that this sounded suspiciously like dinner theatre with a murder mystery theme, but at least in that case, you end up getting a dinner...

The terrible, no-good transit day

Transit really let me down yesterday, coming and going.  I didn't see the northbound bus, but then I was able to hustle across the street and catch the southbound bus.  This one was going all the way to Union Station.  (They've recently reintroduced the 72C which just runs down Commissioners, so it is only every third bus that goes to Union Station!)  Anyway, things were quite crowded, but it finally started to open up around Queen St., and I think I got a seat one block south of Queen.  Then after that, we just crawled and crawled and crawled.  It turned out that the traffic light at Carlaw and Lake Shore Blvd. was completely out of commission.  You really can't have traffic treating a 6 lane road crossed by a 4 lane road as a 4 way stop, but that's what was happening.  I think it took 15 minutes to get through the intersection.  I have no idea how long it was like that, but I am quite disappointed that they couldn't send a police officer to direct traffic, since that was a huge mess.  I just barely made my meeting in the morning, though I had left in plenty of time.

Going home there were no major issues until we got to Broadview.  At that point, an announcement came on that they were completely bypassing Pape due to a fire investigation or something.  No real options given.  I had to decide whether to get out at Chester and walk the whole way or go past Pape to Donlands and hope that the Jones bus turned up before too long.  (It runs far less often than the Pape bus.)  I ultimately decided to get out at Chester and walk, but I wasn't happy about it.  (I got even grumpier when I checked on the TTC Twitter feed and they didn't even bother to mention it, so I guess had I come through 10 minutes sooner or later, the emergency would have blown over.  Call me crazy, but anytime they disrupt service to the extent of completely skipping a subway stop, it merits being mentioned in their Twitter service alerts.)

This morning I just missed the northbound bus and crossed over the bridge to catch the streetcar.  It was so crowded, and due to the way I was squeezed in (and the fact that the person I was standing over was pushing into my space) I couldn't even read my book.  I was not happy.  Almost no one got off the streetcar until Yonge, and I was only going a single stop past that.  On the other hand, I have to admit that it ran fairly well, and I was actually early for my meeting.  But it was an uncomfortable ride and I'm a few pages off my mark for the day (and ultimately I stayed up late trying to get caught up and finally finished On Tangled Paths).

At least going home today was fine.  (It does help that I usually work a bit late.)  I noticed that they just opened up quite a few doors into Union Station (construction is finally over in some parts of the station) and that should help a fair bit with pedestrian flow.  So 1 trip out of the last 4 was pretty good.  Certainly, not a batting average to write home about...  Well, only another couple of weeks and I think I'll see about riding my bike more (and becoming another transit rider lost to other modes).

Jealousy (theatrical listings)

I don't know why I torture myself, but every now and then, I look to see what is playing in Chicago (or even Vancouver, though that is more an artifact of trying to stay somewhat current in terms of Vancouver news).

Just looking at the DPS or Samuel French listings, Chicago generally gets 3 times the number of professional plays that Toronto does.  And it probably has 5 times the number of small, independent storefront theatres.

At the same time, the theatre scene in Toronto has gotten very good, and I am able to go to an interesting play almost every week.  So it probably doesn't really matter that I could gorge myself on theatre if I was still living there.  (I recall I averaged 1.5 plays a week in Chicago, and sometimes it was more about trying to slot things in and deciding what to skip...)

Nonetheless, there are still plays that take a bit too long to arrive in Toronto, and I start looking around at other options.  I just found out that Vancouver is getting the Canadian premiere of Karam's The Humans next spring (March 2018).  Now this will probably land at Soulpepper shortly after this, but I have to say I am tempted to try to come up with a good enough excuse to travel to Vancouver next spring.

On the other hand, there is going to be a US national tour of the Broadway production of The Humans (with at least many of the original cast along for the tour).  This starts in Seattle this spring.  (What is it with the west coast getting the next crack at this play?)  I assume it's coming through Chicago,* and ideally that would land late summer.  I might be willing to travel to Philadelphia or even Pittsburgh, depending on the precise details.  Anyway, I'll try to remember to check back in a few weeks to see what's been decided.**


* On the other hand, The Humans actually originated in Chicago at the American Theatre Company and then moved to Broadway (this was 2014 when I was consumed by the move from Vancouver to Toronto so wasn't able to make a side trip to Chicago), so maybe the national tour won't come to Chicago after all.  The Chicago-New York axis remains very strong, and it seems the best way now to make it on Broadway is to have a critical hit staged first in Chicago.  Something to keep in mind for later...

** The only new news is that it will be in Minneapolis in February, 2018.  It would be really hard to justify traveling there in the middle of winter, especially as I made a quick trip there last October.  I think I'll hold out a bit longer and see what some of the other options are.

I've also just learned that the Broadway tour of The Humans will be passing through Schenectady, NY in March, 2018 (probably right before Spring Break).  It's an interesting decision.  The Greyhound fare is on the order of $200, but it takes 9 hours each way.  Flying to Vancouver is going to run $400-500 with 4.5 - 5 hours of in-flight time, but then getting to the airport, security check, etc. (and as of yet Porter can't fly that far, so it means schlepping out to Pearson).  I imagine the Broadway tour will be a bit tighter in terms of the ensemble, somewhat offset by the fact that at this point in the tour they are only going to be a week in each city.  I'd say I am somewhat leaning towards Vancouver, if these are the only options, but I am still holding out hope that some more appealing venues are announced.

And lo and behold, it will be playing in Philadelphia in Feb 2018, though I think this is a local production, not the Broadway tour.  That's probably ok just to see the play.  Despite my general concerns about traveling during the winter, I might try to do this, though I will continue to try to find out about the Broadway tour dates/locations.

Edit (2/28) So The Humans is coming to Pittsburgh as well, though this is definitely not the touring version, but a new production at the Pittsburgh Public Theater, just like the Vancouver Arts Club production.  This is going to be in November, 2017.  Of all the options to date, this is the most appealing, since I can often get cheap tickets to Pittsburgh on Porter, and I've thought I should check out the Carnegie Museum of Art one of these days.  So I'll keep checking back on the national tour dates, but this is a likely match.