Acting Up Stage Company

What does Fab Magazine have to say about Ride The Cyclone?

“Sheer theatrical magic - it is astounding what can be conjured up with lights, enthusiasm and a cast that seems game for anything - but it would be a shame to spoil the surprise of any of them. If you can get a ticket, go. Surrendering to Ride The Cyclone is similar to a roller coaster ride with all the twists, turns and sudden veering into unexpected places. And the end effect is just as exhilarating - a shot of adrenaline that sticks around long after the neon Cyclone sign blinks into blackness.”

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Next gay review: Ride the Cyclone
11.15.2011
Drew Rowsome

Ride the Cyclone is probably review-proof. Only a few minutes in, when the fortune-telling puppet Karnak’s deep mysterious tones flood the theatre with anticipation and hilarity, any pretense of doing anything other than surrendering to the ride becomes impossible. And what a ride it is.

The plot (the teenaged members of a chamber choir from Uranium City, Saskatchewan, die in a roller coaster accident, and Karnak gives them the opportunity to give the final performances they always dreamed of) is a gimmick of a thread, but the jewels strung along it add up to a simple but devastating conclusion. Each character gets a monologue followed by a showstopping number — and each number tops the last in its emotional resonance. The performers are uniformly talented and all are ear-catching singers, but not for a second did the audience have time to admire the finesse on display — the characters are too real and involving. And while everyone shines individually, it is the cohesiveness of the ensemble that gives Ride the Cyclone such impact.

Kholby Wardell is up first as Noel Gruber, the only gay teenager in Uranium City. Gruber’s enactment of his sordid fantasies and dreams shatters every gay stereotype while revelling in gay fantasies and commenting on the hazards of our diva-worshipping culture. It is sheer brilliance and utterly hilarious. That may be Ride the Cyclone’s biggest strength: it is packed with grand ideas and twisting emotions yet is consistently laugh-out-loud funny. As Hank Pine — set designer, bass player and the thespian who portrays Virgil, the giant rat — says in fab’s preview article (http://fabmagazine.com/Story/frank-hank), “It’s actually funny, as opposed to ‘ho ho ho — that’s funny.’ In bigger productions people pull their punches, but not in Ride the Cyclone. It’s nasty, it’s hilarious and I think people like that. We expected people to be offended, but we play to even old people and they dig it.”

For once a giant rat is telling the truth: the jokes and one-liners in Ride the Cyclone pay off in a big way because they are honest, occasionally “nasty,” and impossible not to apply to one’s own life. During a gorgeous sequence in which the immigrant aspiring rapper/ballet dancer (don’t ask, just enjoy) expresses his heartache for his internet girlfriend, one poor woman in the front row could not contain her peals of laughter — Ride the Cyclone digs under the audience’s skin, but it’s impossible to predict who will be triggered where.

There are many more moments of sheer theatrical magic — it is astounding what can be conjured up with lights, enthusiasm and a cast that seems game for anything — but it would be a shame to spoil the surprise of any of them. If you can get a ticket, go. Surrendering to Ride the Cyclone is like taking a roller coaster ride, with all the twists, turns and sudden veers into unexpected places. And the end effect is just as exhilarating — a shot of adrenaline that sticks around long after the neon Cyclone sign blinks into blackness.

And as a side note: the curtain call reveals that the giant rat wasn’t lying about his ridiculously good looks, either.

Ride the Cyclone runs till Sat, Dec 3 at Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson Ave. passemuraille.on.ca