Image, featuring Shaharah “Gaz” Gaznabbi, designed by Ashley Loyst
Presented by The Lost Scribe Collective
This show has very specific resonance for me, as silly as it may sound, because I have a turtle. She’s a goofy, majestic creature who is a huge and enriching part of my life. I have great fondness for all reptiles. Lizards are, in my eyes, turtles without armour. So I can relate, on a primal level, to the intense relationship Gaz has with Liz. We don’t talk to each other, I guess, but… we do!
My Pet Lizard, Liz: The Shakespearean Existential Crisis That Led to His Ultimate Demise is a real mouthful. It’s both apt and ridiculous, much like Shaharah “Gaz” Gaznabbi’s solo show itself. Directed for maximum miniature bombast by Anand Rajaram, the show contains many giddy flights of fancy in its whimsical rumination on both grief and the joy and frustration of artistic creation.
The main Liz puppet, cleverly designed and built by Lindsey Griffith, is able to clasp onto shoulders and the edges of furniture in a way that is both theatrically practical and evocative of its real-life counterpart. That impression—of the utility of claws—is a small yet vital detail. When Gaz’s pet begins to speak, the Scottish accent is, oddly enough, more infinitely absurd than the vocal ability itself. A random detail that sells him as real to us.
Right at the top, his death is acknowledged, so Gaz’s grief is always there, even in moments of levity. A wistful quality pervades this flashback to meeting and living with him. He gives Gaz and the audience some insight into our foibles as he contrasts our human behaviour with his own reptile instincts. As Gaz struggles to hone their Hamlet monologue for an audition, he discovers an urge to create a piece of theatre himself—as the first Lizard playwright!
Through their theatrical obsessions, the show pokes some self-referential fun at the great thrill and demoralizing, exhausting realities of the industry. We get to see his play performed—at the Toronto Fringe!—and it is a delightfully gory little spectacle designed by Natasha Ross. It is reviewed quite cruelly (more on that later), which sends him spiralling and, ultimately—well, it’s in the title.
There is a cute little love story between Liz and a poodle he meets in High Park—she’s a writer! I was entirely won over by the sincerity of this whole scenario—Liz and the poodle (damn, wish I had made a note of her name!), Liz and Gaz. It’s deliberately, purposefully silly and yet, simultaneously, quite earnest. By the time we get to the Lizard church and its Lizard god, well, it all makes a certain intuitive sense.
Griffith’s adorable set is a felt and cardboard castelet, with protrusions both bookish and floral—a cozy little amalgamation of Gaz and Liz’s interests and their shared world. Even when things slip, fall or lean precariously, it sells the glitchy nature of existence. The songs, composed by Michelle Qadir and performed by Kicksie (music) and Gaznabbi (vocals), are endearingly awkward and sweet.
Gaznabbi’s whole vibe—offbeat, enthusiastic and vulnerable—is fully compelling.
Side note: Liz was not a fan of theatre reviewers. (Pssst, I get it.) I wish I had reviewed his show. I like to think he would have found something to appreciate in it. And I certainly hope to win his trust, in whatever realm he now inhabits, with this offering.
