The Toronto Theatre Review: Outside the March’s Performance Review

By Ross

Walking down the quiet streets of Toronto, looking for the entrance to the Dundas West’s Morning Parade coffee bar where Outside the March, one of Canada’s leading site-specific immersive theatre companies, has staged their one-person show, Performance Review. It’s a sweet, cozy space, overflowing with an eclectic assortment of chairs and an even more eclectic assortment of books, scattered about, like Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “Fleabag“. We are encouraged (by the most lovely crew of people: BO/FOH manager, Claire Jarvis, and audience concierges Sébastien Heins & Amy Keating) to read and wonder about their relevance, with no real idea how significant this space truly is to the talented and mesmerizing artist that has drawn us all here.

We are told these books, stories, and authors all refer to some aspect of what will play out here. And I am enthralled. I order a drink and snack from the wide, long wooden bar that seems to be the focal point of the room. Unfortunately (for me), these drinks are purely coffee bar variety (no alcohol). Still, it doesn’t matter, as the space is inviting, cozy. The bar is solid and warm, which sits true, as I’m guessing this might be the performance stage where creator and performer, Rosamund Small (OTM’s Vitals), will unravel her captivatingly encapsuled tale. Directed from a wild, sharp-angled, and clever vantage point by Mitchell Cushman (OTM’s No Save Points; Trojan Girls…), Performance Review excels beyond anything I could have hoped for, whooshing in most brilliantly into our empathetic soul and stance.

It’s strange, to review a show called Performance Review, but the writing by Small couldn’t be more thoughtful, engaging, sharp, and defined, leading you through seven bell-jarred stories that swim smartly through the complex rivers of being a woman in this world, filled with obstacles and debris, and hands that venture where they really shouldn’t. Without consent. Her one-page resume is smartly optimistic and somewhat naive, drenched in traumatic turns that are honest and abruptly delivered in the perfect authentic manner, throughout the well crafted and utilized space, thanks to fine work done by production designer Anahita Debbonehie (Tarragon’s The Hooves Belonged to the Deer) and sound designer/composer Heidi Chan (Shaw’s The Orphan of Chao).

Those moments; seven stories about seven worst days at seven jobs, are not outrageous or bizarre, but are fraught with clear obstacles that most women acknowledge as being an honest upsetting part of their complex world and everyday life. Yet as dropped in, they hit hard, and ring completely true like an assault sliced with an attitude of power and an attempt to control. Each of the seven is perfectly contained and rolled out, escalating combative formulations. Shockingly clear, Small’s examination of power dynamics and sexual violence never falters, ushering each into the framing by her excitement to be part of something, yet somehow always ending with a rainy downpour of complex trauma creatively assigned around a banjoed object under glass.

The “What ifs “, when first unfolded, hypnotize, and darkly register in a lower team-player tone that hits hard when it sneaks in, organized and punctual. The emotionality and vulnerability of the artist overflows the coffee bar space with a force that is formidable, smartly defined, and heavy, yet true and baked in to a collective arrangement of love and disagreement. The mouse house, the English steam train (wonderfully symbolized) that leads us into a dynamic, high horse of inventiveness, powerfully engages and completely captivates the small audience in the coffee bar from beginning to (the well-squeezed) end.

“Orange you glad,” one might say, as she whooshes into one of the most creative unravelings I have witnessed in a long time. “Thanks a Latte” for it all, as Small’s Performance Review is anything but. It’s huge and inspiring, compelling, painful, and endearing, all delivered expertly by a creator, writer, and actor who is not afraid to showcase her superpower (and her vulnerability) as she gallops with a wide-eyed focus into that horse sanctuary. Playing her favorite music while gazing out the window or washing up after the crowd, Smart is openly ready and willing to let us in and engage. Don’t miss this moment, and not just because the chocolate chip cookie is to die for. You’ll leave completely tuned in and unable to shake all the layers and levels that come across the bar as ordered in this masterful piece of storytelling and theatre writing. I’m giving Performance Review the highest score possible.