Damien Atkin in ‘Here Lies Henry’, Photo by Dahlia Katz
From the darkness, an arresting slab of white light appears—a doorway. The silhouette of a tall, well-dressed, skittish man fills this narrow frame. He enters, the doorway vanishes, and he is forced to contend with us—the audience. As Henry tells his life story in fragmented, meandering anecdotes and slapdash asides, we gradually understand that we’re all similarly trapped in this existentially traumatizing, purgatorial dreamscape—um, Life.
Daniel MacIvor’s Here Lies Henry, presented by Factory Theatre in-tandem with Monster, is a meta-theatrical testament to an offbeat man’s struggle with being human. Our attention as spectators is a palpable force relentlessly pressing in on him. Poor Henry, floundering, is a tense mass of hilarious behavioural ticks that betray a roiling sea of insecurities, desires and frustration. In fits and starts, he launches haphazardly into a series of failed gambits—some lame jokes and cringey dance moves—hoping to find a structure and purpose to his performance.
Damien Atkins is chaotically charismatic as Henry, a manic and endearing spectacle of human contradiction. In his twitchy and spastic quirks, we begin to make out the vague shape of something he’s avoiding. He fidgets, he cowers, he scampers about and rants as various moods take him. In one simple, quiet gesture that holds astonishing power, Atkins brings a clenched fist to his mouth as he restrains and subdues some deep emotion.
A self-proclaimed liar, we’re fully aware that anything and everything could be fanciful embellishment or complete fabrication. A cataclysmic fire! A murder! In one frantic episode, he claims responsibility for a series of heinous affronts to decency—from the betrayal of Anne Frank to the election of Donald Trump. Even as his outlandish, flamboyant persona sizzles and pops with absurdly persuasive rhetoric, we can read between the lines to find his relatable vulnerability, uncertainty and terror of existence.
Henry’s disjointed tale tosses cosmic speculation, theological argument and musings about love, life and death up into the charged air where they vibrate and ricochet off our collective psyches. His confessions are scattershot and dubious yet also entirely authentic and fully human. We are shown how quickly the silly and manipulative little games we play can escalate into cruelty and violence.
MacIvor’s trademark, stream-of-consciousness fourth-wall breaking style is both stylishly self-aware and achingly honest. Theatrical conventions are facetiously lamp-shaded and subverted. One of the my favourite gags is Henry’s rebellion against the restrictive power of that hokey, ubiquitous device—the square of light.
Tawiah M’Carthy has been establishing himself as an insightful, persuasive director. His production of Here Lies Henry is dynamic and evocative. It has an anarchic energy that feels whimsical and spontaneous yet simultaneously purposeful and deliberate. By the time Atkins walks back into the darkness, we realize Henry has helped us see ourselves a little more clearly.