Karl Ang in ‘Monster’, Photo by Dahlia Katz
When paired with the aching vulnerability of Here Lies Henry, Daniel MacIvor’s Monster feels like an ambitious and menacing theatrical parlour trick. Presented by Factory Theatre, in-tandem with Here Lies Henry, it provides grotesque counterpoint to Henry’s poignant, meditative beats. It feels transgressive, framing humanness as a monstrous affliction and our shared space a nightmarish fun-house.
Karl Ang is an intense and dextrous performer, hosting an ensemble of sixteen distinct and vivid oddballs throughout this angry and disquieting multi-character tapestry. A boy obsessed with a next-door murder, a recovering alcoholic chewed up by the Hollywood system, a persistent girlfriend pushing plaintively for attention—these are just a few of the individual portraits of abject humanity scrambling for purchase.
Even when mundane, entirely naturalistic scenes play out, there is an undercurrent of anxious phantasmagoria. Funny bits turn suddenly sinister and alarming. We are always being told a story, can never be quite sure how real any of them are. Like Here Lies Henry, Monster’s reality is abstracted, amorphous and fraught—which is, for me, its most resonant aspect. The festering suburban nightmare vibes are very David Lynch.
The horror set-piece around which all the disparate storylines revolve is a gory episode between a vengeful son and his overbearing, perpetually dissatisfied father. This grisly episode is first described to us by a troubled adolescent, the awful conclusion to his absurdly comic experiences with the creepy neighbour family. This violent scenario becomes a mythic cultural artifact that takes on new significance as each character encounters it.
Ang provides compelling spectacle; his body and voice contort abruptly as he is possessed by this roster of colourful personalities. Though I didn’t find myself particularly invested in any of these individuals, the consistent sense of dread is anxiety-inducing and MacIvor’s crackling text has intermittent but astonishing bursts of insight.
Director Soheil Parsa doesn’t rely on much business. He confines Ang centre stage, restrained in a black box frame where we are compelled to bear witness to him writhing in a barrage of eerie sound and lighting effects. He seems trapped in a stylized, cinematic fever dream of rage, violence and desperation.
With thematic and aesthetic similarities and its contrasting tone, Monster compliments Here Lies Henry, though it didn’t tug at my heart quite so persistently or inspire the same introspection.
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