HUNCHBACK Review
VUE Weekly

BABY GOT BACK - HUNCHBACK LIVES UP TO ITS HYPE

By: Paul Blinov
March 16, 2011

In a way, it feels disingenuous to be reviewing Hunchback based on an opening-night performance. Given how much Catalyst shows grow and change during their runs—even more so than with most other new works—it feels like any edged criticism may be made obsolete through the natural growth of the production once it's on its feet and they start tinkering.

But all said, after a workshop run up in Fort Mac and a year's worth of anticipation, it's go time. And or the most part, everything flies.

In a way, it feels disingenuous to be reviewing Hunchback based on an opening-night performance. Given how much Catalyst shows grow and change during their runs—even more so than with most other new works—it feels like any edged criticism may be made obsolete through the natural growth of the production once it's on its feet and they start tinkering.

But all said, after a workshop run up in Fort Mac and a year's worth of anticipation, it's go time. And or the most part, everything flies.

Hunchback is, of course, immediately and immensely watchable: Catalyst keeps Victor Hugo's tale in the dark and deadly 1400s but Brette Gerecke's costume and designs are clever reimaginings of the styles and architecture of Paris, transplanting it to some strange, tribal, s

pidery future—here, deafened bell-ringer Quasimodo (Ron Pederson) toils away under the watchful eye of Priest Claude Frollo (Scott Walters), who's become hopelessly enamoured with the dancing gypsy La Esmeralda (Ava Jane Markus). It takes the shape of a love triangle, then shifts into a downward spiral for them all.

The most immediate Catalyst comparisons, Frankenstein and Nevermore, were much heavier in ensemble narration and groupspeak; here the narrative duties have mostly been boiled down into one, Pierre (Jeremy Baumung), who sorts through it all them with the necessary gravitas as the one "presenting" this tragedy to us with his company of actors. But what we lose in narration we make up for in structure: richer, deeper scenes, more personal takes on characters and a violent, passionate sense of foreboding that hangs over the whole thing.

The choreography is propulsive, and the ensemble cast is strong. Walters, as Frollo, is particularly haunting throughout, a frau

ght, tormented figure forsaking the doctrine of the cloth in an attempted satisfying of his more fleshly urges. And Pederson—whose role is actually pretty small, despite the title—has a powerhouse singing voice, used with restraint to mass effect here.

Underneath the stylization, it seems there are ideas that haven't quite found their footing. There's a narrative segment of rap that feels strangely devoid of energy with just Baumung going on while the stage sits otherwise empty; there's also some first-half lag. There are moments of high drama that receive a relatively low-stakes delivery (a hanging, a character thrown off a building).

Then again, the song and sequence of gypsies storming Notre Dame is among the finest work the company's done, alongside a potent second-act ballad between Pederson and Markus, and the more beautiful, tender moments carried in the second act. It finally reaches that level of magnetic, stylized performance Catalyst shows have become well-known for.

So, Hunchback's undertaken some risks that haven't quite paid off yet. But its heart beats to a certain undeniable, macabre rhythm. When that potential is achieved, Catalyst will have another real monster on its hands, to add to a roster already bulging with them.

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