There are two stars of Alberta Theatre Projects’ season opener Venus in Fur: Amanda Lisman who plays Vanda and the fabulous wordplay that comprises David Ives’ script.
Briefly Venus in Fur sees Vanda a New York actress with a scanty resumé arrive very late to audition for a part in a new play titled Venus in Fur.
Thomas (Tim Campbell) has adapted the play from a 19th-century German novel that deals with the topic of sadomasochism. Not only has he written the play he also plans to direct it.
Thomas is struggling to find an actress suitable to play the classy seductive Vanda — incidentally his character shares the same name as the actress — who enters into a dominant-submissive relationship with a man who appears to want nothing more than to be her slave.
With her brash unsophisticated manner Vanda the actress seems completely unsuitable to portray the 19th-century chillingly sophisticated dominatrix. Thomas tries to put her off from doing an audition but Vanda simply won’t take “no” for an answer. And so reluctantly he agrees to go through the motions of auditioning her for the role.
As it turns out Thomas is in for a surprise; Vanda the actress transforms completely into Vanda the character oozing old-world European class.
And so Venus in Fur unfolds switching between the play-within-the play as Vanda and Thomas carry out the script’s dominant-submissive relationship and the audition as Thomas starts to fall under Vanda’s spell. While there is nothing overtly sexual onstage the sexual tension is as they say palpable.
The comic moments come courtesy of Lisman who is hilarious as Vanda the actress who never bothers to filter what comes from her mouth. Lisman is also very adept at jumping between her two personas; there is never any confusion as to who she’s portraying in any given moment.
My only disappointment with Venus in Fur stems not from the production but from the script itself.
First of all Thomas has a fiancée who calls him frequently for updates as to his ETA for dinner. While I realize she’s an incidental character I find it hard to believe that he could continually stall his return home without more relationship fallout.
Also considering all Venus in Fur’s intellectual banter I was hoping for something more profound at the play’s conclusion an unexpected universal insight into male-female relationships. (A tall order I know as the “battle of the sexes” has proved fertile theatrical ground for centuries.) Instead I left the show thinking “That’s it?”
And without giving anything anyway the “twist” at the end happens with so little pomp and circumstance that if you blink you’ll miss it.
In short my expectations for this show were high and although ATP’s production under the direction of Tracey Flye lived up to them I left the theatre wanting more from the story itself — more to chew on more to debate more to ponder more to challenge my existing worldview.
