A scene Assembly Hall. From the left: Rakeem Hardy, Livona Ellis, Renée Sigouin, Doug Letheren, Brandon Alley, Rena Narumi, Gregory Lau, and Ella Rothschild.Kidd Pivot
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- Title: Assembly Hall
- Created by: Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young
- Company: Kidd Pivot presented by Canadian Stage
- Venue: Bluma Appel Theatre, 27 Front Street East
- City: Toronto
What is the role of community in a profit-driven world? This might be the central question of the eclectic and discursive Assembly Hall, the latest Kidd Pivot collaboration by choreographer Crystal Pite and playwright Jonathon Young. Or it might not be. The 80-minute work about a society of medieval re-enactors whose re-enactment becomes a reality of its own is like a half-finished Bayeux tapestry: It dangles with dozens of colourful threads that are never quite woven together.
It is a testament to the incredible artistry of its creators, who brought us the internationally acclaimed Betroffenheit and Revisor, that this rich clutter of themes, motifs and references is compelling, if not entirely comprehensible. The piece opens on a subtly mannered community gymnasium (designed by Jay Gower Taylor), with a basketball hoop in the background, exit signs over bifold doors, a tasselled banner hanging on an austere wall, and a curtained stage for amateur shows.
An intriguing duet acts as a prelude: A woman (Renee Sigouin) kneels over the body of an unreactive man (Gregory Lau), and manipulates his limbs into motion. Their quiet communion is interrupted by the arrival of fellow members of the Benevolent and Protective Order, who arrange themselves on plywood chairs and launch into an animated debate over points of protocol, motions to move and when it’s appropriate to serve refreshments.
To deliver dialogue, Pite and Young use a convention that has become their signature style: The eight dancers lip-synch text that has been prerecorded by actors, making staccato-like gestures to emphasize certain words. In Betroffenheit (2016), the technique was a powerful way of symbolizing the dislocation between a traumatized man’s mind and body. Here, it feels more like farce, with the dancers miming tons of text that we intuit, by virtue of its breadth and jargon, to be superfluous – a chattery soundtrack of background noise.
Characters are drawn quickly and stereotypically – we get the keener, the dud, the eccentric, the boss – and there’s dizzying discord about some “unfinished business” that remains unclear.
Things get interesting in the second half, when the society’s re-enactment exercise (called Quest Fest) begins and images start to recur, blend and collapse into each other. Dancers in knight helmets form linear configurations across the stage, dramatic battle scenes flow by as though moving through time, intimate duets unfold to segments of piano concertos.
The board chair appears half-naked in an exaggerated paper crown, performing balletic jumps and dying-swan lunges. Upstage, the curtains are pulled to reveal candle-lit tableaux of suffering. In one, a bare-chested man lies on a table twitching violently, suggesting both the religious paintings of the era and the dissection theatres that came soon after.
Violence and death are tantalizing themes that keep recurring. A man performs a muscular, floor-oriented solo set to sounds of clanging metal, as though his body becomes the point of contact between two swords. A crow-like figure feeds off the limp body of another dancer, until their symbiotic relationship becomes so consumptive and intense it appears sexual. A damsel in distress careens madly in off-balance zigzags, bewailing the death or loss of her beloved knight.
Who is this dead or missing knight? He might be the limp body from the prelude – a figure who might also be the dud character from the first half, a reluctant participant in the re-enactment. He might be the club member who failed to show up, which can account for the empty chair at the meeting. He might be God, or death, or the story itself, or simply the guy in full armour who shows up at the end.
Of course, the ambiguity is intentional, but in a work with so many overlapping ambiguities, we get lost in the layers and can’t grip anything firmly enough to take it away. Judging by Pite and Young’s program note, in which they refer to Assembly Hall’s “many mysteries” and explain its roundabout way of coming to be, it sounds as though they’re aware that they’ve included more than their form can contain.
There are fascinating ideas here about storytelling and repetition compulsion, ritual and sacrifice, death and community, but the blade needs sharpening, and the armour needs some more polish.
Assembly Hall continues at the Bluma Appel Theatre, Canadian Stage, until Dec. 10.
In the interest of consistency across all critics’ reviews, The Globe has eliminated its star-rating system in film and theatre to align with coverage of music, books, visual arts and dance. Instead, works of excellence will be noted with a critic’s pick designation across all coverage. (Television reviews, typically based on an incomplete season, are exempt.)