CANADIAN THEATRE REVIEW (70/Spring 1992)
VIDEOCABARET CHRONOLOGY
Prepared by Michael Hollingsworth and Deanne Taylor

In February of 1976 the Hummers began to work with playwright/director Michael Hollingsworth and composer Andrew Paterson on a performance for “Fifty Ways To Heat Your Video”, an Ontario Video Producers’ Conference organized by Marien Lewis and Deanne Taylor. The collaboration led to the founding of VideoCabaret that summer, in the ground floor of A Space Gallery. Almost as soon as the sketching began, video artist Chris Clifford arrived with the know-how to realize the what-ifs…

The Patty Rehearst Story

Written by Deanne Taylor
Music by Andrew Paterson
Additional lyrics by Michael Brook, Deanne Taylor, Hank Bull
Video installation and image-mix by Chris Clifford and the Hummers
Performance by the Hummers, Robert Nasmith, Alan Rosenthal, Andrew Paterson,
Mary Jane Card, Michael Brook

VideoCabaret, 85 St Nicholas Street, June-August 1976
Frank’s Place (later Ydessa Gallery), November-December 1976
The Kitchen Centre for Music and Video, New York, April 1978

Through highly theatrical music in form, video-performance concepts tell The Patty Rehearst Story. The piece was originally performed as a dog-and-pony act between Acts One and Two of Michael Hollingsworth’s Strawberry Fields, on the same set/video installation/bandstand. In later incarnations the ‘set’ was composed entirely of monitors as décor: a large screen and glossy monitors on one side to represent the Hearst media empire; a bunker filled with camouflaged monitors to represent the new media-terrorists. Characters carried cameras as casually as a mirror, as murderously as an assault rifle, in more metaphoric ways than can here be described.

In 1977, performance artists Randy & Bernicci began an extended residency at VideoCabaret, working in their own distinctive style with Chris Clifford, Andrew Paterson, Robert Stewart, Patrice Desbiens, Marien Lewis, and other members of the company to produce the serial performance As The World Burns.

The Bible as Told to Karen Ann Quinland

Written by Deanne Taylor
Music by Andrew Paterson
Additional music by Robert Stewart, Deanne Taylor
Performance by the Hummers with John Bentley Mays (1977),
Robert Nasmith (1978-79), and Andrew Paterson, Robert Stewart, Patrice Desbiens
Video Installation and image-mix by Chris Clifford and the Hummers

VideoCabaret as A Space, Toronto, November 1977, February 1978
The Kitchen, New York, April 1978
Horseshoe Tavern, July/August 1979
Vancouver East Cultural Centre, September 1979
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, Calgary, September 1979
McMaster University, Hamilton, September 1979 ICA, London, England, October 1979

The Hummers pre-recorded multiple tapes, for multiple decks and monitors, producing images of legs, torsos, heads, bodies lying down, drifting up-right, lying down, a metaphor for media-narcosis. Live images were produced in performance to dramatize confrontations between the live characters and the omnipresent character of the media a.k.a. The Best of Prime time. The Bible is the story of one man’s search for an honest woman, despite himself.

Nympho Warrior

Written by Deanne Taylor
Music by Andrew Paterson
Additional music by Deanne Taylor, Robert Stewart
Performance by the Hummers with Andrew Paterson, Robert Stewart, Ed Boyd
Video production and installation by Chris Clifford and the Hummers

VideoCabaret at A Space, September 1978
Performing Garage, New York City, October 1978
Pumps, Vancouver, October 1978
Vehicule, Montreal, November 1978
Carleton University, Ottawa, November 1978

In Nympho Warrior the Hummers report to the Academy of Theatrical Science on their field work and findings in the search for the lost continent of the male vagina. Using video-performance, live drawing (Besold), music, and a thousand props, the Hummers trace the endocrinological and sociological history of the reproduction.

The Hummer Sisters 1980-1990

In 1980 the Hummer Sisters broke up and remarried. In the 80s the Hummer Sisters were Deanne Taylor, Janet Burke, and actor/musician Jennifer Dean (nee Puidokas). Alan Bridle, who joined VideoCabaret in 1979, performed and helped to produce much of the Hummer work between 1980 and 1985.

Where’s Fluffy (The Decline and Fall of Babyland)

Written by Deanne Taylor
Music by Andrew Paterson
Additional music by Nigel Dean, Mark Lams, Bruce McGillvery
Performance by the Hummers
Video-performances by Virginia Laight, Jack Messinger, Dean Gilmour, Tom McCamus,
Alan Bridle, Marni Jackson, Brian Johnson, John Jarvis
Video produced by the Hummers, Rolf Cutts, Chris Clifford
Video installation by Chris Clifford

VideoCabaret at Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto, February 1981
Toronto Theatre Festival, Music Hall, May 1981

Where’s Fluffy featured the most elaborate pre-recorded video element in the Hummer performance cannon. A two-hour assault of altered TV images and original footage frames the live performance area in which three sociopaths are incubated. This piece featured the first use of political video-cartoons (Reagan, Trudeau, Khomeini) that became a feature of later work (see Tory Tory Tory).

The Tom Tube Show

Written by Deanne Taylor
Music by Andrew Paterson, Ron Wiseman, Brent Snyder, Nigel Dean
Performance by Alan Bridle and the Hummers
Video installation and image-mix by Chris Clifford
VideoCabaret, 149 Yonge Street, Toronto, October 1981 – March 1982

The ultimate Hummer performance vessel, as definitive ‘VideoCabaret’ regularly replenished by current political satire (see also Art vs Art, Tory Tory Tory and CB-TV). In the original production of the host Tom Tube (Alan Bridle) and his guests (The Hummers as celebrity authors, journalists, experts( are located in different performing areas in the same space, linked by video.
The viewers are cast as members of a television studio audience.

ART vs Art/Hummer for Mayor
Written by Deanne Taylor
Additional campaign concepts by Alan Bridle, Paul Oberst, Janet Burke, Amy Wilson,
Jennifer Dean, Terry McGLade, Suzanne Depoe
Campaign video by Terry McGlade, Bongo Kolycius, Alan Bridle
Installation by Chris Clifford, Bongo Kolycius, Al Fox, Victoria Stoeckle, Christopher
Gerrard-Pinker
Music by Andrew Paterson, Brent Snyder, Nigel Dean, Bruce McCulloch, Brian Johnson
Campaign poster by David Hlynsky

I n 1982 VideoCabaret and the Hummers launched their residency at the Cameron House by running for Mayor of Toronto under the official candidacy of A Hummer. Coinciding with the run-up to the election more than 100 artists created the ART vs Art Campaign including posters, window installations, and nightly performances in the VideoCabaret at the Cameron House. The ground floor tavern and second floor studio were wired for sound and video so that Tom Tube, hosting from the second floor, could present his guests in the most appropriate way: i.e. advocates, electoral candidates, and other ‘talk show’ guests in the studio; musicians, poets, and other performers on the tavern stage. Two cameras hovered the studio, three cruised the stage.

Hummer for Mayor refers to the posters, videotapes, press conferences and street performances created by the Hummer “political” team (nearly co-existent with the Hummer “art” team) directly related to press and television coverage, i.e. campaigning. Tapes produced for television, and ensuing television coverage, were re-worked into the Cabaret each night, sometimes hot off the air. A Hummer received 12,000 votes.

Documentation includes:
ART vs ART, as 57 minute videotape with highlights of the campaign (Premiere, Festival of Festivals, Toronto, September 1983)
ART vs Art, the cupboard full of original tapes from approximately 120 hours of performance and related production

Tory Tory Tory

Written by Deanne Taylor
Performance by the Hummers, Alan Bridle, and a cast of 30
Video-performances by David Fox, Geza Kovacs, R.H. Thomson, Christopher Gerrard
Pinker, Robert Nasmith, Bryan Johnson
Music by Brent Snyder and Nigel Dean
Live videography by Bongo Kolycius, Ed Mowbray
Pre-recorded video by Janet Burke, Edward Mowbray, Deanne Taylor
Video installation and recording by Chris Clifford, Victoria Stoeckle, Chris Gerrard Pinker

VideoCabaret at the Cameron House, Toronto, June 1983

A simulation of the 1983 Conservative Leadership Convention performed on the same nights as the proceedings in Ottawa. The Tom Tube format was turned upside down, with Tom hosting from a bank of video-monitors on the ground floor of the Cameron, while upstairs in the studio 35 actors and a couple of ENG crews simulate a live broadcast from the Convention Centre in Ottawa. Tom Tube chats with reporters (played by the Hummers) in between “speeches” by the leadership candidates. The “journalism” segments are performed live, the “speeches” are pre-recorded video-tapes. The tapes are political cartoons featuring altered footage of the real candidates (Mulroney, Clark, et al.) edited to fit speeches written by Taylor and performed by actors (Nasmith, Thomson), edited by Janet Burke and Edward Mowbray.

Documentation:
Tory Tory Tory, a 35 minute videotape, edited. (Premiere, Festival of Festivals, Toronto, September 1983)

Hormone Warzone

Written by Deanne Taylor
Performance by the Hummers, Victoria Stoeckle, Alan Bridle, John Blackwood, Nigel
Dean
Videography by Edward Mowbray
Sound by Chris Clifford
Edited by Edward Mowbray and Deanne Taylor
Music by Brent Snyder

Produced by VideoCabaret, November 1983

A survey of birth control from Aristotelian advice (“mouse dung checks abominal thoughts in men”), to the diaphragm (“never show it to a man unless he’s in love with you”), to the IUD (“so you can be available to fuck more often than any man you ever met”), and proposes a new form of contraception – Men.

Documentation:
Videotape, 11 minutes
(Previewed at Convocation Hall, December 1984; Premiered at the New Work Show, August 1984; AGO Collection)
CB-TV
Video installation by the Hummers, Alan Bridle, Michael Hollingsworth, Ed Mowbray,
Chris Clifford, Bongo Kolycius, Victoria Stoeckle, Christopher Gerrard Pinker,
Jim Plaxton

VideoCabaret at the Cameron House, April/May 1984

A weekly series of VideoCabarets, including an electronic all-candidates meeting with video-questions by John Sewell, Bruce Kidd, and others, posed to candidates Dale Martin, Susan Eng, Peter Maloney; a special performance by Michael Hollingsworth of 1984; a video-performance by Victoria Stoeckle, Chris Gerrard Pinker, Laurie Conger; a video artists’ talk show directed by Edward Mowbray.

Power Play

Written by Deanne Taylor
Performed by the Hummers, Alan Bridle, Jack Messinger, Bill Towgood
Vocal performances by J.D. Roberts, Michael Macina, Denis O’Connor, Booth Savage,
John Blackwood, R.H. Thomson, Robert Nasmith, John Jarvis, Michael Hogan
Video by Bongo Kolycius
Audio by Brad Mulligan
Edited by Bill Towgood and Deanne Taylor
Music by Brent Snyder

A video docu-drama about the 1984 Liberal Leadership Convention, giving the same video-treatment to Turner, Chretien, et al., as featured in Tory Tory Tory. Produced as a videotape, and removed from the live performance pressure, there is a PBS safari feel to this pieces, as Tom Tube, Darlene Daily, Wanda Whiplash and Barb Honey investigate the rituals surrounding the anointment of leaders and the transfer of power in the exotic land of Canada.

Dress to Kill

Written by Deanne Taylor
Performed by the Hummers
Directorial consultant, Paul Bettis
Music by Christopher Gerard Pinker, Billy Bryans, Mojah
Pre-recorded video produced by Ed Mowbray, Rick Simon and the Hummers, edited by
Mowbray and Burke

Installation at VideoCulture Canada, Ontario Place, November 1984

Located in a glass and girder sphere along with a Paik Pyramid, the Hummer installation consisted of a raised stage and three video-totems, three monitors high. A sign indicates that representatives of Personal Video Services will demonstrate their product at hourly intervals, five times a day. Entering through the crowd, passing out company brochures, the Hummers take the stage and introduce their wares: a variety of iconographically female video-companions: Maria (States of Grace), Eva (Gates of Hell), the Combo-package (States and Gates), Trixie (The Hooker Next Door), and this year’s model, Same (The Well Dressed Girl is Wearing Balls This Spring).

Island to Island

Co-produced by VideoCabaret, Shadowland Repertory Company in association with the Bamboo Club Caribana Parade, Toronto, August 1985/86/87/89

In 1985 Deanne Taylor initiated a design and performance collaboration with Toronto and Trinidad artists, including Shadowland, whose members are residents of the Toronto Islands, and Christopher Pinheiro, Peter Minshall, Geoffrey Stanford, and Ann Henry Lee of Trinidad. Since that time the artists have visited each other’s Carnivals to engage in making and playing of mas(querade). The narrative power and kinetic vitality of mas design strongly influences the current work of the Hummers, VideoCabaret, and Shadowland Repertory Company.

Vox Pop ’85

Written by Deanne Taylor
Music by Ron Wiseman, Rick Sacks, Deanne Taylor, Micah Barnes
Performed by the Hummers, Ron Wiseman, Rick Sacks, Alan Bridle
Consulting Director, Paul Bettis
Designed by Shadowland
Lighting by Jim Plaxton
Sound by Dave Hillier

VideoCabaret at Lee’s Place, Toronto, October-November 1985, with performances, videotapes, video-text, art and other contributions by more than 80 artists.

Continuing the Tom Tube Show/Art vs Art tradition, Vox Pop was presented nightly for three weeks leading up to the 1985 Toronto municipal election. The fixture of each evening’s cabaret was the Hummer performance of Vox Pop, the play, also known as Dreamer. This piece reflected the influence of Trinidadian masquerade in an elaborate series of headpieces that allowed the Hummers to suggest a large number of characters (Freedom, Licence, Local Election, Your Vote, Mind, Doubt, Pollster, Planner, Media). Presented in the usual Hummer-style of musically-accompanied speech and songs, Vox Pop departed from the video-performance base of most Hummer work.

Whiten Up

Written by Deanne Taylor
Music by Rick Sacks
Consulting Director Paul Bettis
Performed by the Hummers, Rick Sacks

Royal Alexandra Theatre, Arts Against Apartheird, June 1986
Toronto Free Theatre, June 1986

A brief, musically-punctuated choral performance on the metaphors of race – black, white, rat and human.

Vox Pop ’88

Created by Michael Hollingsworth, Deanne Taylor, Janet Burke, Amy Wilson, Bongo
Kolycius, Chris Clifford, Alan Bridle, with many contributing artists.
VideoCabaret at the Cameron House, November 1988

When the American Election fell on November 8, the Toronto Municipal Election on November 14, and the Canadian Federal Election on November 21, Vox Pop was there with a volunteer crew of theatre/video/film technicians to cover the marathon. From 7 to 11 each evening Toronto’s most passionate democrats were entertained in the ground floor tavern by closed-circuit “television” (tapes, and performance originating in the studio) as well as live performance on stage. Guests included candidates, advocates, artists, writers, musicians, William Lyon Mackenzie (Eric Keenlyeyside), Sir John A. Macdonald (Tom Butler), Dr. Tory (Ted Johns). The 1988 innovation was a format that involved the audience posing questions to studio guests, i.e., talking back to “television” and getting a response.

Documentation:
The Great Debate, 12 minutes, an altered-video reply of John Turner (Ray Landry), Ed Broadbent (Ray Landry), Brian Mulroney (Robert Nasmith) in 1988 Debate.
Produced by Janet Burke
Vox Pop ’88, 25 hours of documentaion, 12 performances

Recorded live off the floor by Bongo Kolycius, Chris Clifford

2nd Nature

Written and directed by Deanne Taylor
Music by Brent Snyder, additional music by John Lang, Rick Sacks
Performed by Janet Burke, Jennifer Dean, Maggie Huculak, MarryEllen Mahoney,
Deborah Theaker, Maria Vacratsis
Designed by Theresa Pryzbylski
Lighting by Jim Plaxton
Video installation by Chris Clifford, Bongo Kolycius
Live video-performance by Victoria Stoeckle, Laurie-Shawn Borzovoy, Chris Clifford
Sound design by Terry Crack

VideoCabaret at the Theatre Centre, Toronto, June-July 1990

An epic in the Hummer tradition involving the tradition of four performers, and the transplantation of Deanne Taylor from the performing ranks to the art-overview. 2nd Nature is a creation myth that tracks the evolution of the species from vegetable matter to god. Located in the headquarters and loins of a woman’s body, the piece is a metaphor for the body politic, the social body, the govern-mental tyrannies and the environ-mental devastation, imposed thereon.

Documentation:
Videotape, 2 hours, live off the floor, shot by Bongo Kolycius
Co-produced at Theatre Passe Muraille, Nov./Dec. 1991.

MICHAEL HOLLINGSWORTH
Though identified in the theatre world as a playwright and director, Michael Hollingsworth’s work with video/music/text/design is best considered as art.

Strawberry Fields

Written and directed by Michael Hollingsworth
Music by Michael Hollingsworth, Andrew Paterson
Performed by Robert Nasmith, Alan Rosenthal, Brian Condie
Music performed by Andrew Paterson, Michael Brook, Mary Jane Card
Video-graphics performed by Marien Lewis and various Hummers

(Original Factory Lab production, directed by Paul Bettis, 1972)
VideoCabaret at A Space, June-July 1976
Performance Garage, New York, 1978

VideoCab’s first full production was Michael’s adaptation of his play Strawberry Fields for the video-music crucible. The text was shaped into rock-driven chants, rants and skirmishes; video images blew up the details, implicated the observers, found angles to play. The story which takes place in the aftermath of a rock festival is performed in the fragmented bombast of a real one, magnifying the central metaphors of violence.

Punc Rok

Written and directed by Michael Hollingsworth
Music by Michael Hollingsworth, Andrew Paterson
Performed by Alan Rosenthal, Larry Ewashen, Karen Wiens
Music performed by Andrew Paterson, Robert Stewart, Patrice Desbiens

VideoCabaret at A Space, November 1977

A woman, a bi-man, a gay man, triangulated murder and mayhem; punc rok as it’s played by people who can’t spell it, desperadoes drowning in the new wave.

Cheap Thrills

Written and directed by Michael Hollingsworth
Music by Michael Brook
Designed by Bobbe Besold
Lighting and special effects by Chris Clifford

Performed by Larry Ewashen, Alan Rosenthal, Marien Lewis, Robert Nasmith, Mary Ethel Phelan
VideoCabaret at Theatre Passe Muraille, June 1977

The primal myth, the eternal battle of the sexes, the never-rendering nemesis, Cheap Thrills is the entire history of stories, boiled down to the poetic juices, and performed with an absolute aversion to naturalism.

Electric Eye

Written and directed by Michael Hollingsworth
Music by Michael Hollingsworth and Andrew Paterson
Performed by Andrew Paterson, Robert Stewart, Patrice Desbiens
Video-performances by Jackie Burroughs, Robert Nasmith, Berenicci Hirschorn, Randy
Gledhill, Maury Chaykin, Andrew Paterson, Alan Rosenthal, Karen Wiens, Mary
Ethel Phelan
Video produced by Chris Clifford, Rodney Werden, Michael Brook

VideoCabaret at A Space, January-February 1978
The Kitchen, New York, April 1978
Pumps, Vancouver, November 1978
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, Nov. 1978
Vehicule, Montreal, December 1978
Carleton University, December 1978

A homicidal man, armed with a guitar, stalks the video-landscape visiting a series of deadbeat acquaintances. The interplay of live and pre-recorded dialogue fills the stage with a ghostly population, and casts the audience as the unwelcome visitor, paradoxically engaging them in the experience of utter alienation.

Documentation:
Electric Eye, the EP Recording

1984

Adapted, directed, designed by Michael Hollingsworth
Music by Michael Hollingsworth
Additional music by Andrew Paterson
Performed by Alan Bridle and Alan Rosenthal
Music performed by (1979) Andrew Paterson, Robert Stewart, Ed Boyd; (1979-80) Mark
Lams, Whitney Smith, Allistair Sutherland, Nigel Dean, (1980) Geoff McCulloch,
Roger Slemens, Nigel Dean
Video performances by Alan Rosenthal, Berenicci, Robert Nasmith, Brian Condie, Alan Bridle
Video produced by Chris Clifford with Elinor Galbraith
Video Installation by Chris Clifford
VideoCabaret at the Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto, July/August 1979
Vancouver East Cultural Centre, September 1979
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, September 1979
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, September 1979
Institute of Contemporary Art, London, England, October 1979
Annex Theatre, Toronto, February 1980
149 Yonge, March-May 1982
Cameron House, June 1983

1984 is adapted for the stage as video performance according to Orwell’s maxim – Whoever controls the Present controls the Past; whoever controls the Past controls the Future. The show trial of Winston Smith takes place in Room 101 where O’Brien builds the State’s case against Winston Smith with a barrage of video-surveillance tapes. Images of Sexcrime, Thoughtcrime, minutely defined acts of treason, bombard the live action in split-second volleys, rigorously timed to musical and dramatic rhythm.

Documentation:
VideoTape (real-time) of various performances
Brave New World
Adapted and Directed by Michael Hollingsworth
Music by Michael Hollingsworth
Video production and installation by Chris Clifford
Performed by Alan Bridle, Alan Rosenthal, Virginia Laight (1981) and JoAnne McIntyre (1983)
Video performances by Bridle, Rosenthal, Laight/McIntyre and Jack Messinger, Robert
Nasmith, Jennifer Dean, Janet Burke
VideoCabaret at the Toronto Theatre Festival, Music Hall, May 1981
149 Yonge, March-May 1983

Cameron House, July-August 1983

Hollingsworth locates his adaptation of Huxley’s novel in Bernard Marx’s apartment, where the video-walls project a world in which every Alpha Man has a Beta Girl, and Gammas don'’ have unions. Into a deathless world of videophones, video-politics, and video-porn comes the Noble Savage with stars in his eyes, Shakespeare on his tongue, and mortality on his mind.

Transworld

Written and directed by Michael Hollingsworth
Video produced by Chris Clifford, Victoria Stoeckle, Chris Gerard Pinker
Costumes and props by Gordon Smith
Performed by Michael Hogan, Susan Hogan, Patrick Brymer Music Gallery, Toronto….

Produced as a video-artifact, Toronto, July 1982

A complex metaphor of American imperialism, cultural and economic, spun from the simple tale of a fantastically gullible Canadian lad and his bloodletting services to the father of serious business, Mr. H.

Documentation:
Videotape, 22 minutes, videography by Chris Clifford

The History of the Village of the Small Huts: Parts 1-5, New France (1985) The British (1986) The Mackenzie-Papineau Rebellions (1987) Confederation & Riel (1988) Laurier (1991)

Written and directed by Michael Hollingsworth
Music by Brent Snyder
Set and Lighting design by Jim Plaxton
Costume and prop design by Shadowland
Performed by Alan Bridle, Robert Nasmith, Janet Burke, Jennifer Dean, Geza Kovacs, Michael Copeman, John Blackwood, Arturo Fresolone, Gary Farmer, Deanne Taylor, Graham Greene, Patrick Brymer, Paul Bettis, Eric Keenleyside, Tom Butler, Derek Keurvorst, Bruce Vavrina, Mario Romano, Kim Renders, Stephen Ouimette

After eight years of creating video-performance spectacles in which cameras, lights and monitors, music instruments, amplifiers, technicians and miles of cable were part of the art design, Hollingsworth’s design for the History series strips the theatrical experiences to its essentials – actor, costume, light; and pushes these to the limit – scores of grotesque characters, hyperbolic costumes, 200 lighting cues an hour. The Histories are performed in a “black box” that is precisely perforated for light, and hinged for invisible wings. Nothing but the precise frame or sculptured space of each scene is visible – a close-up on hand or face, the flicker of two heads conspiring, the tension of a triangle, the monumental solo with crowds at the edge of the light. Characters simply appear and vanish, fleet and insubstantial as memory, haunting as history.

VideoCabaret in association with Theatre Passe Muraille
New France (March 1985)
The British (April 1986)
The MacKenzie-Papineau Rebellions (April-May 1987)

VideoCabaret in association with Toronto Free Theatre
Confederation and Riel
Olympic Arts Festival, Calgary, February 1988
Arden Theatre, Edmonton, March 1988
Toronto Free Theatre, March-April 1988
VideoCabaret at Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto, 1991
Laurier

Alan Bridle
Last Man on Earth
Written, directed, designed and performed by Alan Bridle
Video produced by Chris Clifford, Bongo Kolycius, Chris Gerrard Pinker, Victoria Stoekle
Video installation by Chris Clifford with Jim Plaxton

VideoCabaret at the Horseshoe Tavern, September 1980
Toronto Theatre Festival, Music Hall, May 1981
Cameron House, September 1983
EXPO ’86, Vancouver, September 1986
Phoenix Theatre, Edmonton, October 1986
Factory Theatre, Toronto, October 1986

Adair is the sole survivor of an unspecified global holocaust. Holed up in a TV studio, fortified with basic provisions, he creates a video-social life. Mom, Dad, estranged lover, lewd intruder and more, visit, nag, remember, challenge and provoke and otherwise allow the last man on earth the luxury of misanthropy. In the four incarnations of this piece, Bridle’s tale evolves to the point where the hopeless misalliances of his micro-society drive Adair to his own brand of genocide. Playing all the video-characters in one-camera real-time performances, Bridle creates the ultimate video-co-stars for his live performance and, just as the character Adair discovers, lives or perishes with denizens of his own mind.

Documentation:
Videotape, produced with Rogers Cable TV by Bongo Kolycius, Chris Clifford, Alan Bridle, Shain Jaffe