Sunday Feature: Rick Miller on Venus in Fur and "Comfort"

‘COMFORT’

by Rick Miller (photos by David Hou)

“You don't have to tell me about sadomasochism. I'm in the theatre!”

(from Venus in Fur, a play by David Ives, 

adapted from the novel by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch)

Judging from the photo above, the idea of ‘comfort’ seems an appropriate lens through which to examine Venus in Fur, the play I’m currently co-starring in with Carly Street at Canadian Stage in Toronto. This Tony Award-winning two-hander by playwright David Ives is now the most produced play in the United States, and it’s easy to see why. It’s smart, sexy and seductively entertaining, while tapping into ongoing debates about gender inequality, power struggles and sexual mores.

CanStage artistic director Matthew Jocelyn uses the word “labyrinthine” when speaking about Venus in Fur. It’s an apt description, in that the play leads us through a jarring set of twist and turns as it spirals to its quasi-mythical climax. The ‘comfort zone’ that is established early on with the audience slowly dissolves and becomes more and more unsettling and uncomfortable. When the lights come up from the final blackout and we settle back into the familiarity of a curtain call, Carly and I both feel the rush of having taken the audience – and ourselves – on an incredible ride.

Review: (Montreal) Bigger Than Jesus (version française)

(Photo credit: Craig Francis)

Mass

Rick Miller is 33, the same age as Jesus was when he was crucified, he was raised Catholic, he hasn’t been to church in 15 years

by Rebecca Ugolini

“Vous allez assister à une messe,” co-author and actor Rick Miller told last night’s expectant opening night audience of Bigger Than Jesus, a one-man show presented at Theâtre Denise-Pelletier by Canadian groups Wyrd Productions and Necessary Angel.

Featuring a new French-language translation of the script by Marie Gignac and Miller and an innovative staging utilizing live projections by Beth Kates and Ben Chaisson, Bigger Than Jesus rivals any liturgical celebration in pomp, grandeur, and mesmerizing visual effects, producing a show which straddles the serious and the silly, the sacred and the profane. 

First-Person: Rick Miller on Critics

“We should not seek immortality in reproduction. But if you contribute to the world’s culture, if you have a good idea, compose a tune, invent a spark plug, write a poem, it may live on, intact, long after your genes have dissolved in the common pool.” 

(Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene)

“This one’s done, Rick. Stick a fork in it and let it go.” 

(Richard Ouzounian, from a Toronto Star review of HARDSELL 2.0)

by Rick Miller

My last article dealt primarily with ‘control’, specifically control of the creative process and one’s career in the arts.  This one deals with ‘survival’.  

Survival in the entertainment industry conjures up images of a plasticized Wayne Newton or a Botox-ed Liza Minelli but I want to explore something closer to home: why I keep pushing my shows to survive in a competitive market instead of just “letting them go”, to paraphrase our esteemed Toronto Star critic. Granted, I wish we hadn’t invited critics to that show (which was still trying to find its form) but the sheer gall of a theatre critic dispensing The Last Judgment on something I have been working on for 5 years astounds me. The fact is that HARDSELL 2.0 is not only surviving but thriving: I am premiering the French version at Festival le Carrefour in June, we’ll be shooting a short film that will hopefully lead to a TV series adaptation, and I’ve already premiered the in-school info literacy workshop. My point is that the fate of a show shouldn’t lie in the hands of a critic. If I had listened to the ‘critic within’ in 1994, I would have killed the cast-party joke that was to become MacHomer, which is still on tour and is premiering in New York and at Stratford this spring. More on MacHomer and critics later…

Review: (Toronto) Bigger Than Jesus

(Photo credit: Cylla von Tiedemann)