By Megan Mooney

 

There’s a theatre company in Toronto that I haven’t heard of before called Theatre Smash (I’m sure there are a bazillion more out there that I haven’t heard of…).  Well, I’ve heard of them now because I stumbled onto their website. 

Here’s the thing, I’m sure there is some deep serious reason for the name, but I’m a goof, so I just keep thinking “you won’t like me when I’m angry, THEATRE SMASH!!!”  Um.  Yeah.  Apparently I’m 12.  So, to help make up for my using their name for my juvenile fun I’ll tell you a bit about them…

Theatre Smash is a company that  “Develops and produces contemporary theatrical work with a global twist. (They) are particularly interested in engaging our audiences with new writing from Canada and beyond through our exploration of text, movement, space, and multi-media.”

They have a show running September 5-21 at Tarragon Theatre’s extra space.  From the press release:

Online chat rooms, teen suicide and youth alienation explored in
Theatre Smash’s Canadian premiere of
NORWAY. TODAY

Theatre Smash takes theatre to the edge this September with the Canadian premiere of Swiss playwright Igor Bauersima’s provocative and critically-acclaimed play Norway.Today.

Inspired by a true story, Norway.Today is an existential romantic comedy about two lost souls searching for the meaning of life through death. Julie (Ieva Lucs; Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille) and August (Marc Bendavid; Buddies in Bad Times, The Gladstone Variations) meet in an Internet chat room when Julie announces that she will soon take her life – and issues a challenge for someone to join her. August responds, and, after exchanging words and digital photos, they agree to meet atop Pulpit Rock, a 2000-foot cliff in Norway.

It is upon this precipice that the two young people carefully set the stage for their dramatic last moments. With daylight turning to night, and the appointed hour of dawn approaching, they interrogate each other endlessly for a feeling, a touch, a memory, anything that might, for once, make life seem real and “not fake.” When morning finally arrives, the pair must decide whether their encounter will take them over the edge as planned, or whether, somehow, a shred of possibility – a life-affirming reality – has finally been awakened.

So, here’s what I’m thinking…  I’m thinking everyone should go see Norway. Today. so that there won’t be any hard feelings about my comparison of the theatre company to the Incredible Hulk, because, really, I’m sure they’re not *actually* an angry theatre company…

Heck, you can go one further by going to their fundraiser on August 18 (yes it’s a Monday, it’s a theatre thing that isn’t a play, of course it’s a Monday…) and help them raise funds (ohhh, that’s what one does at a fundraiser!  Now I know) to mount Norway. Today.

 

Photo of The Hulk by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid