Cast of Iris (Says Goodbye) | Photo by Stefi Kopp
Presented by Mixtape Projects
It took me a little while to warm to this show. I did not anticipate—early on, when a self-consciously quirky number about a cannibal lover felt rather empty—that I would be teary-eyed by the end. Iris (Says Goodbye) is a high concept outing with a familiar what if purgatory was (insert here) premise that leads to both glorious comedy and poignant truth bombs. With book and direction by Margot Greve and songs by Ben Kopp—the team behind another hit Fringe musical, Killing Time (pre-Fringe production review)—there is solid pedigree here.
After the sound of flatlining, Iris (Michelle Blight) appears in a massive airport. Vacant, of course, except for all the folks who have died, but whose names haven’t been spoken for the last time. That’s the idea, that once you have been completely forgotten by anyone living, you must move on, through the door, to—well, nobody knows.
Iris, however, has been given the rare opportunity to do it all over again—Life! She even gets to choose which life that will be! The catch? Her options are limited and her memory will be wiped. Iris glimpses each of those potential lives through a series of musical numbers. These range from the ludicrous to the sublime. And really, it’s luck of the draw…
A collection of disparate objects at the front of the stage—each assigned a specific life-path—are selected by audience members who, ultimately, determine the specific content and order of each performance. As I’ve mentioned, the first left me cold, but most of show was considerably more compelling. I have my favourite numbers, of course, but it has a solid build towards a satisfying finale.
A trio of alter egos get to play out these potential-life scenarios. It is great to see some opportunity for a variety of distinct, charismatic performers (Madelaine Hodges 賀美倫), Luca McPhee and Sydney Gauvin) and it makes dramaturgical sense for Iris to witness these potential lives rather than actually live them, but it is a little disconcerting that our protagonist is, for the most part, just sort of watching from the sidelines. She has some funny-funny with a disembodied voice, a hilariously deadpan administrator in this purgatorial space, and two distinct moments where she asserts her meta-theatrical agency, but she mostly she just creeps along the fringes.
There was one specific moment, however, when Greve’s direction provides a powerful button on the most emotionally affecting number, Gauvin’s “What Will Happen Next,” which tracks the progress of a life as a series of decisions: at the end, the two Iriss face each other and the concept absolutely crystallized for me in that instant. I think having some purposeful moment of connection between the Iris’s after each number might help break-up the overall passivity of our main Iris.
While Gauvin’s was the emotional pinnacle for the potential Iriss, Hodges has the most comedic opportunity. “2090” tracks her Iris’s heroic rise in a future dystopian wasteland. She is also the lead of “Immortal,” where her Iris gets to live forever and, well, this one really hit hard for me too—an absurdist sort of scenario, but profoundly sad and capturing the essence of what makes life precious. McPhee has an abundance of bright-eyed energy. They are likeable in “Bequeathal,” a sleaze in “It’s My Party,” both of these have McPhee as the centrepiece of scenarios that specifically skewer self-serving behaviour.
The songs are well-crafted and work perfectly in context, but are not especially memorable in their own right. Greve’s staging, with fluid and striking choreography by Alli Carry, is elegant and dynamic. The purgatorial ensemble (all solid performers) build the world of each scenario and it’s always visually exciting. Overall, Iris (Says Goodbye) should satisfy your needs for spectacle and sincerity, offering plenty of both.
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