Devon Healey in Rainbow on Mars | Photo by Bruce Zinger

If you’ve seen The Matrix and hunched scholastically over Plato’s allegory of the cave, the opening scenes of Rainbow on Mars will seem very familiar. Written by and featuring Devon Healey in the central role of Iris, those works inform the piece as much as Healey’s own experience. Presented by Outside the March, in collaboration with The National Ballet of Canada and Peripheral Theatre, this presentation is loaded with intriguing and innovative stagecraft. Directors Nate Bitton and Mitchell Cushman have crafted a fun and intriguing theatrical atmosphere. 

The immersive aspect of this dance-theatre odyssey into Blindness feels restrained though, as if visual spectacle and passive comfort ultimately take precedence over the visceral provocations teased early on. The show as a whole never quite lives up to its urgent, disconcerting and theatrically disruptive opening beats. Continue Reading