Chris Bullough, JT, Catherine Green, The Tourist, Periphery Theatre, d: Manon Beaudoin
“If you said this dazzling masterwork by José Teodoro is a little like the Marx Brothers meet Franz Kafka and Kurt Weil, you wouldn’t be far wrong. Which is to say it’s as many parts comic as sad, just as its sinister side counterbalances with the seductive... Run, come see.”
Richard Helm, The Edmonton Journal
The Tourist
Josef awakes in an unspecified European city at dusk, hungry, weary, confused, involuntarily drifting in and out of sleep, accompanied only by a valise he dare not open. As he wanders between the city’s decrepit edifices he’s accosted, seduced, harangued by its colourful citizenry: a bon vivant, a paranoid innkeeper, an arsonist performance artist in a hairy animal suit. Each ensnares Josef into their private obsessions—governmental conspiracies, ecological decay, a disappearance that could be construed as murder—while arranging an impromptu concert to be held in his honour. Events tumble toward him through a nearly relentless fog, until Josef traverses the city’s boundaries where, under a canopy of fireworks, revelation takes form in the scattered shards of memory.
“Perplexing though it is, events are rushing toward a carefully calibrated and chilling climax... Teodoro has fashioned a mini-masterpiece here that is impressively clever on many levels. He keeps you guessing but he has a singular, focused vision that holds your attention.”
Colin McLean, The Edmonton Sun
“The Tourist has the matter-of-fact surrealism of a dream... Teodoro has taken care to fill the action with enough oddball characters and unpredictable moments of humour to keep you engaged even if you’re not quite sure for much of the play exactly what he’s up to.”
Paul Matwychuk, Vue Weekly