YOU MUST CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Toronto
Supported by TO Live
text rearranged from the notebooks of Richard Foreman
adapted/ designed/ directed by Ilana Khanin
cast Thea Mae Hesler, Annie Hoeg, Golshan Alaei, Katie Crompton, Mika Deneige, Chris Holtkamp
photos Drew Berry
Ah, you must be disoriented. You must have been paying attention to your own words instead of mine. You must be at the other end. You must be hearing the inside of your own head. You must be superstitious. You must know I am here? You must change your Life.
Intermission Magazine, Review, Liam Donovan
So does the play argue that performance is at its most interesting when different parts of the theatrical apparatus collide in a moment of Gesamtkunstwerk, generating meaning that’s infinitely more complex than a plot alone ever could be? I’d wager not. The play isn’t arguing! It’s thinking, and since it’s theatre, it does that by testing out different ways of transforming bodies, text, and space. (Khanin does a remarkable job of leaning into the uniquely rundown architecture of the 108-year-old Alumnae.) Although the title You Must Change Your Life is mostly an homage to Foreman’s similarly grand statements, I feel the production lives up to this loud proclamation — because most of our lives could do with more theatre that invites the audience to join it in thought.
✭✭✭✭
“a spare, witty and enjoyable bit of self-conscious absurdity”
“the jumble of stream-of-consciousness thoughts that occurred to me as I was watching the barely-an-hour-long show, is pretty damn exciting.”
“The two, voices expressionless despite plumbing apparent depths of ennui, converse, debate and move in tightly choreographed tandem. The movements are small, mostly jerky, and in perfect sync. Only some pointed eye movements differ. You Must Change Your Life's creator/director Ilana Khanin is making it clear that this is all artificial, this is theatre.”
“What Khanin is doing is stripping theatre of its trappings.”
“It is a convincing argument for peeling away the layers of artifice that we bury hard truths under.”
“Khanin subtly riffs on the dangers of being disengaged from reality, from finding reality "not interesting." Fortunately Foreman's notebooks, and Khanin's canny rearrangement of those thoughts and musings, add up to an anti-theatrical theatrical experience that offers no solutions but much to dwell on. We don't need the light to be terrific, just interesting.”
Review, A View From the Box, Janine Marley
“an experimental, existential piece of theatre which uses the musings from Foreman’s notebooks to create a stirring new work.”
“The use of light and dark in this production is especially insightful and has a great impact in how the characters are seen and how they’re able to move on stage.”
“expertly choreographed”