“Stop
thinking and start living!” That is the motto of The
Power of Ignorance, a hysterically funny spoof of self-help
seminars and the self-appointed gurus who lead them. Anyone
who saw Chris Gibbs (pictured) last year in Antoine Feval
at the Fringe Festival or in its run at the Diesel Playhouse
will know that he is an inspired comedian with a sense of
timing so perfect he can get a laugh with the simplest pause
or gesture. The occasion for this revival of The Power of
Ignorance (2003) is the recent publication of a spin-off pseudo-self-help
book of the same title promising “183 pages of mostly
new material!”
The leader of the
seminar and author of the book is Vaguen (Gibbs), Master of
Ignorance. While in a mental institution, Vaguen was adopted
by a group known as the Ignorati, who taught him how to harness
the power of unknowing and sent him to spread ignorance throughout
the world. We know that a little knowledge is a bad thing.
We know that what you don’t know can’t hurt you.
Building on such accepted commonplaces, Vaguen gradually reveals
to the audience how we can overcome fears and obvious impediments
to success simply by ignoring them.
At 90 minutes it
might seem that authors Gibbs and T.J. Dawe have stretched
a single-minded theme rather thin, but they have, in fact,
cleverly woven Vaguen’s background story into the lessons
he teaches. As Vaguen’s seminar progresses he draws
increasingly on peculiarly nasty episodes from his childhood,
which he naively assumes the audience has also experienced.
It soon becomes clear why the young Vaguen would have been
drawn to a form of self-help based on tuning out reality.
Gibbs gives a marvelous
performance full of irony. He exudes an air of artificial
suavity that does not fully mask the insecurity underneath.
Bit by bit he shows how Vaguen’s mispronunciations,
malapropisms and unpleasant memories eat away at his façade
until we eventually glimpse the quivering milquetoast Vaguen
would be without his self-induced ignorance. Gibbs’s
surprising acrobatics and the literally smashing finale will
convince anyone that The Power of Ignorance is bliss.
(4 STARS)
Christopher
Hoile, Eye Weekly, Toronto
Brilliant
mind came up with Ignorance
Fear not, gentle
Fringer. Vaguen has arrived to save you from the pain of knowledge.
Vaguen, who was once Chris Gibbs of the Fringe favourite duo
"Hoopal," champions, well, the power of ignorance.
The show begins in darkness with a voice rhyming off a list
of absolutely unrelated topics. (He even gets into his shopping
list.)
"What do these things have in common?" he asks.
Well, they are all connected by nothing but, of course, the
power of ignorance.
Vaguen then delivers his famous seminar on how ignorance can
change your life.
"If you don't
know what isn't possible, then nothing isn't possible,"
he tells us.
He even returns
to the Bible to quote one Jesus Humphrey Christ who said,
"They know not what they do." The basis of Buddhism,
he points out "is the knowledge of nothing."
Vaguen did not come to his enlightenment overnight. He studied
with the great ig-masters of the world and ignored everything
they had to say.
He even gives us our own power of ignorance ig-mantra: "Duh!"
He tries to help us out by using hypnotism but, alas, keeps
putting himself under before he reaches the end of the procedure.
There are great
pearls of ignorance here.
"Ignorance helps when you try to explain why your country
went to war." "What you don't know won't hurt you
and so the ignorant man is invincible."
Gibbs, (who benefits
from the directing of uber-Fringe performer TJ Dawe) has the
timing of cosmic clock, a subtle comic personality that finds
humour in the smallest gesture and a fractured logic that
can only come from a brilliant mind.
Brilliant mind? Gee, sorry Chris. I blew your cover.
Duh!
(4 SUNS out of
5)
Colin
Maclean, Edmonton Sun
If you’re going to catch just one show at the Uno Festival,
this is the uno for you. Penned by fringe festival darling
TJ Dawe and U.K performer Chris Gibbs, this comedic look at
motivational seminars is wicked, gut-busting satire. It will
make you laugh – loudly.
Vaguen, played
by Gibbs in a white turtleneck and double-breasted blazer
with brass buttons, is a self-proclaimed master ignoramus.
He entreats the audience to embrace the “power of duh,”
that is, the blissful state of ignorance. “Ignorance
is limitless possibilities,” declares Vaguen, encouraging
us to enter the “gateway of naiveté” and
follow the “path of befuddlement.” Sounds absolutely
silly, but then, doesn’t embracing nothingness sound
like something a zen master might advocate … or at least
a self-styled guru from Southern California?
Gibbs, who recalls
Saturday Night Live’s Chris Parnell in both mannerisms
and looks, is a confident comedian who absolutely nails the
smarmy charm of the worst motivational speakers. His theatrical,
self-conscious style and obnoxious assuredness is exactly
what we see on late-night infomercials featuring weasels promising
to teach us how to get rich selling real estate. The absurd
humour found in Dawe’s own one-man shows crops up in
The Power of Ignorance – there are bizarre, risk-taking
tangents in which Vaguen alludes to his dysfunctional childhood,
for example.
Gibbs’s poise
as a performer is reflected in his sharp ability to ad-lib.
On Tuesday night he was able effortlessly to improvise jokes
about passing motorcycles and late theatre-goers. It was hilarious
(although it seemed less so when a certain theatre writer
in the front row was selected for a lambasting).
Overall, this is
one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in years. Cleverly
written and beautifully performed, The Power of Ignorance
is satirical comedy at its finest.
(5 stars)
Adrian
Chamberlain, Victoria Times Colonist
In
a world where we constantly feel inadequate, confused, disoriented
and abandoned on the technological autoroute, there is help
and a joyful message at the Fringe. It is a self-help seminar
on how to tap into the power of ignorance.
Yes, mankind has
been barking up the wrong tree all this time, questing after
knowledge, seeking enlightenment. "Are you confused?"
asks the silky-voiced, reassuring man onstage. "If you
don't understand, you're already using your power of ignorance.
... Confusion is the boulevard to ignorance" (via "the
rumpus room of endarkenment"). And perfect ignorance,
as you will learn in the course of this exquisitely constructed,
perfectly daffy architecture of logic by Chris Gibbs and T.J.
Dawe, is what you need not only for success and happiness,
but life itself. The assertions are provocative; for example,
"without ignorance, everyone in this room would be dead."
Vaguen (Gibbs, half of Hoopal) provides irreducible proof,
numerous syllogisms, useful analogies, riddles, inspirational
aphorisms (ig-mantras like "Duh" with deep breath)
from the great ig-masters of history about how to rid yourself
of unwanted knowledge and how to understand better the importance
of a lack of understanding.
Since only a tiny
portion of the human brain is ever used, "isn't it better
to rely on the 90 per cent that does nothing than the 10 per
cent that's already busy?" This makes sense, and the
man onstage has one of those silky, reassuring voices. He
is here to help.
There's a hysterical
rigour to the process here, and Gibbs as Vaguen is the funniest
performance I've seen at the Fringe. The Power Of Ignorance
is bliss; join the ignorati.
(5 Stars)
Liz
Nicholls, Edmonton Journal
Straight
up front, I want everyone to know that I know Chris Gibbs
personally. That's not going to stop me from slagging his
show, though. At least, it wouldn't if I could slag it. Which
I can't, because it's such a rich, funny and original show.
Chris arrives on
stage in the person of Vaguen, Master of Ignorance, a sort
of a cross between self-help guru Tony Robbins and uber-evangelist
Billy Graham. He is the guide who will lead us to the enlightenment
that is ignorance. According to Vaguen, ignorance is not only
bliss, it's power. He spouts truisms like: "If you don't
know who you are, you can be anyone you want to be" and
"Confusion is the boulevard to ignorance."
As our "seminar"
continues, we are treated to more background of Vaguen's life,
including a very telling hypnosis session that goes badly
awry. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone, but let's
just say it's a smashing conclusion.
Brit performer
Chris Gibbs, one half of the physical comedy duo Hoopal, has
co-written with multi-talented Fringe favourite T.J. Dawe
an off-kilter, clever, absurd and howlingly funny script.
Gibbs's delivery is a combination of dry wit and barely controlled
madness that threatens to go off the rails at any time. That
in itself was enough to send Friday's audience into gales
of laughter, but he combines it with physical comedy, sight
gags and subtle mannerisms that take the whole enterprise
to the next comedic level. This show is a must see.
And remember, according
to Vaguen, the only people to use 100 per cent of the human
brain are cannibals.
(4 1/2 Stars)
Russ
Hewitt, CBC.CA
TJ
Dawe, "what, you again?" (he's everywhere at the
fringe), co-wrote this 60 minutes of inspirational lunacy
with Chris Gibbs. Fringe fanatics will recognize him from
Hoopal and last years Gibberish, both top notch comic outbursts.
Now I put it to
you that by the age of 25 we come to realize we can't know
everything, some of us know very little. Oh, you have your
areas of expertise, like minature plastic dinosaurs, all of
them except the stegosaurus, damn Kellogg's, and we sent the
ten box tops like they asked, and did they even send so much
as a bloody note...as an example of the kind of lecture that
Gibbs gives.
So, why not give
ignorance a chance? Plead ignorance. Drift through life like
Manuel in Fawlty Towers , "I know nothing". Travel
down the boulevard of Confusion to the land if Ignorance.
Learn to chant the ig mantra..."duh".
We've all been
to a self- actualizing, motivational, invest- now -while-
others- perish seminar, at one time or another in our lives.
Gibbs as Vaguen is an amalgam of them all. And then bit by
bit his childhood comes out as a factor in his search for
ignorance. It is painfully funny, but with a hint of edginess,
not to all tastes, I'll grant. The ending is "striking",
that's all I feel I can say, but the laughter carried on as
people were leaving the venue. Another smash hit at the Fringe.
(5 Stars)
Ron
Robinson, CBC Radio
Those
attending The Power of Ignorance only to see the physical
comedy that Hoopal's Chris Gibbs was known for may be disappointed.
Gibbs plays his material dry and low-key, espousing, with
enlightened smugness, the benefits of "not knowing".
Anything. At all. If this were most Fringe shows, that would
be it. But Gibbs (who co-wrote the show with TJ Dawe) instead
plunges to deeper levels of absurdity, dredging forth the
bizarre as well as the disturbing. As a performer, Gibbs deftly
handles his material, as well as curve balls from the audience.
He can stop on a dime, fire off a smart remark as though it's
a revelation, and create anticlimax with something as simple
as drinking from a glass of water. Subtlety of writing and
perfectly-timed slapstick - The Power of Ignorance is brilliant
comedy.
(Rating : A+)
David
Jon Fuller, Uptown Magazine
This
is the funniest piece I have ever seen at any of the 13 fringes
I have attended. Heck, it's in the top five of the funniest
plays I have seen in nearly half a century of theatre-going.
It is written by
Chris Gibbs and TJ Dawe, and performed by Chris Gibbs. Now
why would TJ Dawe collaborate on a funnier piece for someone
else than for himself? The only thing I can think of is that
TJ is just too sweet on stage to show his mean side - and
this play has some very black jokes about childhood abuse
and puppies.
Even the program
is funny, so read it to put yourself in the mood before the
show starts. I was moaning in pain between bouts of laughter
during the show. Really.
I won't spoil things
by telling you any of the jokes. The program notes tell you
everything you need to know. And ignorance is powerful.
This show is heading
west to other fringes, so if you missed it, Go West, young
(wo)man! It's worth it.
Janet
Coutts,
montreal.com
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