A seemingly normal family flees from floor to floor of their apartment building. Each time the space gets smaller and smaller. Mments of peace from an encroaching and unknown evil 'noise' are filled with talk of nothingness, of marrying off a sickly daughter, of food, of a former way of life that has no meaning. Never do they speak of confronting the evil instead they beat the Schmurz, a silent, bizarre and bandaged creature lurking in the corners. Only the daughter, talks of the horror and is ignored. The rest of the family, instead builds 'empires of illusion in the sky'.

This darkly comic play by one of France's most gifted poets, playwrights and musicians, is an absurd view on the culture of fear. What happens when we allow ourselves to be ruled by a Faceless, nameless, but ever present terror? Who or what is it that we are really afraid of?

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Review: Absurdist play still resonates, especially in Greenberg centre Studio

Patrick Langston, The Ottawa Citizen, Published: Friday, February 08, 2008

At least when they're crammed inside the steamer trunks, they're not talking. Well, not talking quite as much. Father and Mother do love to chatter, and French absurdist playwright Boris Vian's Empire Builders -- Third Wall Theatre's sturdy production at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre Studio -- gives them free rein. Problem is, all that jaw flapping is a paper-thin protection against reality. And reality always busts through.

Of course, you can hardly blame Father and Mother: their reality is terrifying, bordering on the surreal. Vian's dark 1958 comedy finds them, along with their daughter Zenobia, their servant Mug and a strange, bandaged creature named Shmurtz, fleeing an unnamed evil called the "noise." They squeeze into smaller and smaller spaces in their apartment building. They periodically disappear into their cramped trunks. They eat stodgy noodles. And they talk. My God, they talk.

Father (a suitably bluff Julian Doucet) and Mother (a brittle Maureen Smith) yammer on about their fine new digs, re-enact their wedding day, plot to marry off their anxious daughter Zenobia (Katie Bunting) to the unseen son of a baffled neighbour (Riley Stewart).

Zenobia -- does the first letter of her name mean to suggest that she's the end of the line for this family, if not all humanity? -- tries vainly to get her parents to confront their desperate situation. Meanwhile, the taciturn Mug (Alix Sideris) slumps around, and the mute Shmurtz (Matt Miwa) is unaccountably kicked, elbowed and stabbed with a fork, getting the same pummelling that reality does from dear old ma and pa ("We're not scared," declares Mother; "The problem will resolve itself," says Father).

The problem, of course, doesn't resolve itself at all, and we're treated at the end to Father's penultimate toast to denial in a scattered, mind-numbing monologue.

Take the play how you will -- an allegory about western civilization's vanishing point, a cautionary tale about fearing fear itself, a suggestion by an emotionally disturbed playwright that you don't live in apartments -- it still resonates decades after the zenith of theatre of the absurd.

Directed by Joël Beddows (artistic director, Théâtre la Catapulte) this co-production with The Empire Builders Collective could be zippier, the comic moments sharper. But overall it works well and is noteworthy for bringing together members of Ottawa's English and French theatre communities.

This is also Third Wall's first production in its new home at the Studio. It uses the smallish space to advantage by seating the audience along two walls and staging the play down the centre, allowing the family to back into an ever-smaller area. How Third Wall deals with the space in future will be interesting to see.

Empire Builders continues at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre Studio until Feb. 16. Tickets & times, 613-236-5196.

Review: Difficult production pulled off in aces

Denis Armstrong, The Ottawa Sun, Published: Friday, February 08, 2008

You think you need a vacation?

A nuclear family on the run from civilization become terrorized refugees in Third Wall Theatre's groundbreaking production of Boris Vian's Empire Builders, playing at the Irving Greenberg Theatre.

As the play opens, Father, played by Julian Doucet (city councillor Clive's son) is a brilliant but thin-skinned orator who can speak volumes about anything, while Mother (Maureen Smith), is a brittle woman who might aspire to be Debbie Reynolds in the 1950s.

They're moving into their new apartment with their erotically inclined teenaged daughter Zenobia, played by Katie Bunting, and housemaid Mug (Alix Sideris). In a moment of pure understatement, Zenobia complains the new pad -- three steamer trunks -- isn't as big as their old one downstairs.

But now they're on the run from an evil noise -- the cranked up sound of a city -- that lurks outside their door. Cramped into this overly bright white floor space, they endlessly talk about nothing and, on occasion, violently beat their loyal bandaged lifeform name Shmurtz, played by a groaning Matt Miwa, to distract themselves from the noise outside.

But, like a lot of European absurdist post-war comedies, the enemy isn't outside, it's us and all our neurotic, delusional, despairing glory. Once safely locked inside, all three family members mercilessly abuse themselves, their maid and their nervous neighbour, played by Riley Stewart, until the family falls apart.

It's fitting Third Wall's first production in their new home should be one as ambitious as Empire Builders.

Vian's comedy is demanding in virtually every sense of the word. It's heady, intellectual stuff. Fortunately, director Joel Beddows is obviously comfortable with all this French absurdity.

The artistic director of Ottawa's Theatre la Catapulte brightens this black comedy with a light, playful, almost camp sensibility while an excellent cast strikes the right note between playing the serious drama funny and playing the funny comedy seriously. Particularly Doucet, who is stinging as the megalomaniac Father, and Sideris, who is hilarious as the downtrodden housemaid.

Empire Builders runs until Feb. 16.

Sun Rating: 4 out of 5

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