Gregory Katsenelson, Sophie St. Jean and Katie Crompton in “Unbelievably Beliebable”, Photo by Ivan Kaydash
This all ages show from Twisted Dog Theatre, currently playing at the comfy Red Sandcastle Theatre, is very trippy. Not everything landed for me, but Unbelievably Believable is consistently whimsical and imaginative. With the first Toronto snowfall of December figuring into the quietly absurdist narrative, it feels very of the moment.
At the top, our three performers (Katie Crompton, Gregory Katsenelson and Sophie St. Jean), clutching pillows and decked out in comfy pajamas, have their plans for a good night’s sleep disrupted by some mysterious force drawing them into a giddy dance number. From there, we meet two mice who work in a traffic light—it’s a whole thing with a delightful pay-off. One of them is a dreamer wearing a broken coffee mug for protection. While the other mouse tries to keep them on task, they have a series of peculiar encounters with random oddballs.
A seagull who ate too many advent calendar chocolates bursts into spontaneous holiday songs. A raccoon inspector pops out of a trashcan and interrogates them. (Do they have all the required permits? More urgently, are they are harbouring a rooster? Hens are allowed—no more than four, according to local by-laws—but no roosters.) As our dreaming mouse awaits a call from the ocean in her sea shell and a baby dragon to hatch from a stone, the random, very specific weirdness had me going “Wait, what…?” pretty much the whole time. The invented logic is sure to delight kids especially.
Catherine Maleikova’s production, on which she’s worn a number of hats (playwright, director and design collaborator), has a warm, hand-crafted charm. There is a well-balanced blend of DIY elements. Laird McMurray and Natalie Bakulev’s cartoonish, two-dimensional set pieces conjure a cozy urban nook. Denis Gonobolin and Bakulev’s puppets are a plushy delight, full of adorable details and embodied with sincere commitment by the cast. Serge Man’s projected animations add additional texture to this miniature spectacle.
One of my favourite sequences involves an apple cake maker at his stand giving somewhat cryptic yet inspiring advice to our little dreamer mouse. The mask-work here is startling, both soothing and eerie, like so much of this production. Some quaint little ditties (by Aimee Carty, Sally Jaeger, Karolina Stepien, Ivan Maleikov and Maleikova) add a musical layer, while magic and mild audience interaction foster spontaneity and immersion.
Some action staged low down on the floor was tricky for me to see, even as an adult in one of the rear rows. I imagine this issue would be more intense from a child’s vantage point, so you may need to hold littler ones on your lap to fully experience certain moments.
There is an awkwardness that creeps at the fringes of each little sketch; rather than diminish their impact, it skews our perspective just enough to make us more receptive to the consistent strangeness. It is rough around the edges and meandering yet crafted with such genuine affection, it won me over.
Unbelievably Believable
running December 5 to 15, 2024
Red Sandcastle Theatre (922 Queen St E.)
running time: 55 minutes (no intermission)
Katie Crompton in “Unbelievably Beliebable”, Photo by Ivan Kaydash