What the Thunder Said (2006)
Read
Martin Denton's review for nytheatre.com ( web | PDF
download )
Selected by nytheatre.com as
one of the "15 People
of the Year in
2005"
The link to the article is here.
Lenz (2005)
"...an environmental adventure unlike anything I've ever
partaken of in my years of theatregoing....visceral and affecting...If
you care about challenging, boundary-stretching theatre, then go see
this show."
— Martin Denton, NYTHEATRE.COM, October 2005
Read the full review here.
American Standard (2005)
Read
the Globe & Mail review (March 19, 2005) HERE
"Movement, design and atmosphere contributed
to one of the most intimate works this year. A company to watch for
sure."
— Glenn Sumi, NOW magazine, Dec. 2000
The Memory Of Bombs
“
The performance itself is more punk circus than theatre…Bluemouthinc.
uses movement and music better than almost any other troupe in town.
NNN”
— Glenn Sumi, NOW magazine, August 2004
“The Memory of Bombs unfolds
in a haunting location, and a flurry of awe-inspiring images and physical
movements assault the senses.”
— Kamal Al-Solaylee, The Globe and Mail, August 2004
Something About a River
Winner of the 2004 Dora
Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Independent Production.
"The company that's bringing me to my critical knees
is Toronto's Bluemouth Inc. In one, five-hour evening, Bluemouth is
remounting all three parts of its trilogy, an environmentally staged
elegy to
a Toronto
long dead
if
not quite completely buried. It's a marathon "performance installation" that
requires physical and mental stamina...The work evokes different
moods and responses...the images are by turns exquisite, frightening
and
hypnotic. *** 1/2"
— Kamal Al-Solaylee, The Globe and Mail, November
2003
Read
the Globe & Mail review of Something About a River
What the Thunder Said
[Critics’s
Pick] what
the thunder said (bluemouth
inc). This powerful show by site-specific troupe bluemouth inc. takes
us (by bus, blindfolded) to an undisclosed location, where we see evocative,
suggestive scenes unfold with bold theatricality and heartbreaking
beauty. An Eastern flavour underlies the work, which on the surface
seems to be about the price of gung-ho American values. Unforgettable.
Aug 7-10 and Aug 12-13 at 8 pm. Off-site, meet at Factory Theatre.
NNNN.
— Glenn Sumi, NOW magazine, Aug. 2003
5. Bluemouth inc. (Something
About A River, Part One: The Fire Sermon; Lenz)
Memories of staging tricks are often what audiences retain from
interdisciplinary performances. Bluemouth -- Stephen O'Connell,
Sabrina Reeves, Lucy Simic and Richard Windeyer -- delivers the
entire package, complete with story, characters and most importantly,
emotion. In The Fire Sermon, set in a porn cinema and the first
part of a trilogy, and later -- superbly -- in Lenz, played out
in various hotel rooms, the company kept surprising and mesmerizing
viewers.
– Jon Kaplan's "Top 10 Toronto Theatre Artists
of 2002"
LENZ
"Too often, multidisciplinary performance is experimental
but soulless. In stark and bloody contrast, Lenz has a dramatic heart
throbbing at its centre.Crea ted by the always fascinating bluemouth
inc., the site-specific show has viewers visit three hotel rooms to
learn the story of Lenz (Stephen O'Connell), his sister Iris (Sabrina
Reeves) and Pierre Riviére (Christopher Taylor Wright), the
latter at first a shadowy player in the tale. Murder, a blurring of
internal and external realities and the quest for connection with other
people make up various strands of the plot.
Well, plot might not be quite the word. Viewers see the
three segments of the show in random order, depending on the hotel
room key they draw, and it's left to each audience member to piece
together an account that makes sense. What the production achieves
splendidly is giving the whole event an emotional arc, even if the
narrative arc is occasionally unclear.
Writers O'Connell and Reeves bring the kind of in-your-face
intensity (that's an intentional acting style, since they work in close
proximity to the audience) that never rings false, while Richard Windeyer's
soundscape enhances the chilling quality of the text. Wed beautifully
to its setting, touching uncomfortable feelings that people usually
ignore, Lenz is scary, heightened theatre.
And I mean that as a compliment."
Rating: NNNN
— Jon Kaplan, NOW, October 2002
"Site-specific performance(s) like this one reinvent
spaces that might otherwise remain mundane, sort of like browsing through
a 7/11 after living in the Kalahari Desert for a year...An insightful
glimpse into the seedier side of living..."
— Malcom Rogge, Lola, Fall 2001
something about a river, part one: the fire sermon
"....no company I’ve seen in the festival
juggles more balls as strikingly as bluemouth
inc. Their multimedia piece Something
About A River begins a year-long, three-part journey with The
Fire Sermon, and the fact that it’s an off-site
show for SummerWorks shouldn’t keep you away. Nor should the
fact that it’s being presented at a soft-core porn movie house,
the Metro XXX Cinema (677 Bloor West, at Clinton). It’s a totally
appropriate venue for the first section of a show that looks at different
sorts of concealed ambivalences; in this case, the ambivalence revolves
around our attitude toward sexuality.
The company specializes in multidisciplinary work, as
I discovered when I saw Ceasefire,
their 2001 SummerWorks piece. In that show the audience was invited
onto the stage with the actors to watch a man in a cage playing a clarinet,
films projected on the actors and intense movement-based work.
Something About A River plays
with the metaphor of what’s hidden beneath the ordinary and everyday,
and as a symbol for that idea the company’s chosen Garrison Creek,
which runs – mostly buried – beneath Toronto. (I know someone
whose basement’s been flooded by the creek, which occasionally
swells and rises above ground level.) The Fire Sermon is performed
near the upper part of the creek; a winter show will take place near
its centre, and a spring performance is planned for the creek’s
mouth.
It’s an ambitious undertaking, and should be splendid
if the other two parts are as strong as the first. Performers Stephen
O’Connell, Sabrina Reeves, Lucy Simic, Robert Tremblay, Glenn
Christie, sound designer Richard Windeyer, lighting designer Jud Martell
and Byron Wong, who’s credited with additional imagery and music
sources, have created a rich mix here, a series of interrelated stories
that aren’t easily taken in on a single viewing. They make great
use of the venue and what can be done there – the Hollywood-style
murals on the walls, trailers from 50s horror films, let’s-all-go-to-the-lobby-style
cinema commercials, evocative new video clips – to look at what
we think and feel about sex both overt and covert. Again, the actors
are adept at making a statement via movement as well as by what they
say, so there’s added potency.
Even if I didn’t get all the layers of material,
there’s something special about the project. It’s still
haunting me a week after seeing the show, and I can’t wait for
the other two parts, or the whole three-part staging in the fall of
2003.
A clever and splendidly visceral site-specific production
about sexual ambivalence...
Rating: NNNN "Critics pick"
— Jon Kaplan, NOW magazine, August 2002
"Risk pays off for bluemouth as the sticky floors
and seedy nostalgia of the Metro Theatre lend themselves perfectly
to its latest venture. Incorporating film, live performance and dance,
this piece offers us an evolving story in an all-encompassing environment.
Most impressive is the consistent level of awareness of both the lovely
rundown movie theatre and the living, breathing audience it contains.
The result is a cerebral, yet accessible, exploration of sexual ambivalence
that refuses to let us simply press play and sit back in the anonymous
darkness. As the first part of a planned trilogy based about and around
the West End's buried Garrison Creek, The Fire Sermon leaves us anticipating
where bluemouth will take us next."
— Sue Balint, The Eye, August 2002
Cease-fire
"An excellent production when you allow it
to wash over you..." **** (4
stars)
— Don Mosely, The Eye, August 2001
"The inventive bluemouth inc invites the audience
into direct, non-participatory contact with performers in Ceasefire,
a multimedia piece about the Bosnian war. Dance, hand-held lighting
and film projection into a birdcage are among the highlights of the
piece. The movement and staging are always intriguing...Stephen O'Connell's
caged clarinetist draws attention with his speeches about birds"
— Jon Kaplan, NOW Magazine, August 2001
Pas Avec Espoir, Pas Sans Espoir
"An eloquent meditation on grief..."
— Susan Walker, The Toronto Star, Dec.
2001
"An intense, highly suggestive work..."
— Gwen Adams, Lola, Summer 2002