On May 5-9
Tickets: $40
Harbourfront’s Enwave Theatre at 231 Queens Quay West
416-974-4000 for tickets 

by Heather Christie

The cold, hard stats: six words, seven performers, 73 characters, fifteen meters of corridor, and one giant red parachute balloon. 

Green Light:  If you’re into postmodern, experimental theatrics, and actively analyzing an elusive piece of theatre, give this one a shot; it’ll keep the cogs turning for awhile. 

Red Light: If you like an accessible and/or apparent plot or if you’re not into rather abrasive sound effects, CCB will not be an easy 90 minutes for you. 

For a performance with such few words and performers yet a shocking number of characters, there’s a lot to be said for The Cleansing of Constance Brown.  And yet, those words evaporate when I try to make them coherent. 

The basic premise of CCB describes the cleansing of a woman —Constance Brown—who has existed throughout the ages and across the globe.  And that’s about where the thread of linear narrative stops.  Opting out of a more traditional plot progression, CCB instead melds scenes as diverse as corporate mayhem, genocidal arson, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth I, and a failed exorcism to create more of a theatrical experience than a play.   

Action takes place down the length of a giant corridor that capriciously changes shape and size.  Opening onto this corridor are rooms through which characters emerge, disappear and interact.  This partial revelation of play space to audience members stirs up voyeuristic feelings of foreboding, especially given that the first—and some of the only—lines of the play are, “I can see you”, delivered straight at the viewers.  In all honesty, it’s a tad creepy—er, unsettling. 

Much of the CCB plays around with lighting and ideas about light, shadow, and dark.  It also delivers a neat little epiphany on how little we actually need language to communicate some pretty complex ideas.   

The Cleansing of Constance Brown is performed by Stan’s Cafe, a renowned theatre troupe from Birmingham, UK as part of the Harbourfront Centre’s World Stage grand finale.