Last Men

"I still have chaos in me!" the naked man shouts into the empty void of his bedroom to the mysterious voice from above shortly after waking up from a hand-job he's just received from his spouse. We find out later this man's name is Hugo and he will begin to prove just that.

The set darkens and once the set is re-lit we see a man named Doug dressed in business casual pacing around what now resembles a motel room. What follows is a manic confession and plea into a palmcorder for Warren Buffet's ears to transform the way his company treats pigs in order to maximize profit. Doug is an agricultural engineer for Buffet's company and is upset that a recent barn fire has claimed the lives of an entire barn of pigs. A slideshow he was meant to present at a Agricultural Expo on Human Factor Analysis is now re-tooled to reflect the shame he feels toward the poor treatment of pigs he's been involved with the past twenty years. The pigs were helpless to escape as they were confined to a metal stall of only eight square feet, screaming as the flames took their lives. A further indignity, they've been forced to stand or lay only a few inches above their own excrement their entire lives. Doug contemplates their death was maybe a release from the hell the pigs were subjected to and actually rejoiced in their own immolation. Clearly in the stages of his personal "light bulb moment", Doug's empathy for the animals he's helped diminish for profit's sake now rule his actions and thoughts.

(intermission)

Enter a restaurant and a scene of three round dinner tables. You are witness to a small retirement party (or 'quitting party' as Hugo states) for Hugh and the four white balloons tied to the backrests of chairs meant to represent his guests. Hugo is ebullient as he interacts with each guest and talking about his condo in Costa Rica and its potential for medical (and sex) tourism. We soon discover Hugh is in crisis as the relationship he's had with his wife Juanita has crumbled due to the birth and death of their Down syndrome child due to a botched heart operation. He's been employed at a hospital in the Patient Safety department and finds himself feeling disappointed and useless. He speaks to the dynamics of Human Factor Analysis and its shortcomings as well. He acts out his soul-searching exercise in front of his quests wildly at times, admitting that his most recent decisions may be caused by his abrupt departure from his Prozac medication. As the evening progresses, Hugo manages to offend each one separately and they get up to leave (enacted by the waiter entering the set and removing the balloon) and he eventually finds himself sitting alone with the waiter having a scotch.

You need to enjoy a barrage of dialogue in order to enjoy these two plays. Except for the hand-job woman and the waiter's appearance, they are one-man plays. I don't find this a negative and I commend each of these actors for being solely responsible for keeping their audience engaged. Peculiarly, I felt the swearing in the first play by Doug (Krakendorf) was appropriate, but not as much in the second (Puntarenas) by Hugo where it felt tossed in for the sake of it. Small theatre productions are known by many to be edgy. In walking through the doors of Theatre Projects Manitoba to see these two short plays, no one should be surprised by what they hear.