Suspect Package
presents
by Daniel MacIvor
Directed by Josie Le Grice
Lighting by Christoph Wagner
Performed by Trevor White
31 January - 25 February 2006
‘Now you might think that I’m weird but I’m not. I’m fucked-up. There’s a fundamental difference between being weird and fucked-up. You are born weird, you get fucked-up. You can’t be born fucked-up or get weird. You have to be born weird. I’m fucked-up.’
Meet Victor - the epicenter of Daniel MacIvor’s House – a whirlwind of words that has already taken Toronto and New York by storm. House is a stand-up, sit-down comedy nightmare - a wild, shocking and disturbingly hilarious ride which won the Chalmers Award for Best New Canadian Play on its debut. Welcome to House - Victor’s House.
Daniel MacIvor is one of Canada’s leading contemporary playwrights and a multi award-winning actor and director for the acclaimed theatre company da da kamera. He has been writer-in-residence at Toronto’s prestigious Tarragon Theatre and Canada’s National Theatre School, and twice won Canada’s ‘Olivier Award’ - the
Dora Mavor Moore Award, won an OBIE off-Broadway and was nominated for Canada’s highest literary prize - the Governor General's Award.
London-based Canadian actor Trevor White plays Victor. His theatre credits include Robert Lepage’s Polygraph (Nottingham Playhouse); the title role in Pericles (Vancouver); Double Indemnity (Nottingham Playhouse); the Canadian Premiere of Don DeLillo’s Valparaiso and Steven Berkoff’s Kvetch, for which he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Off Broadway).
House is directed by Josie Le Grice, who directed the Canadian premieres of Mamet's The Cryptogram (Tarragon Theatre) and Margaret Edson's Wit (Manitoba Theatre Centre); and the world premiere of Daniel MacIvor’s Marion Bridge (Toronto and National Tour). She has also worked for the Factory Theatre, Stratford Festival, Royal Alexandra Theatre and the Canadian Stage Company.
Suspect Package was founded in 2003 to present Canadian plays in the UK. Their debut production was George F. Walker's Problem Child (New End Theatre) which received rave reviews – ‘a small but almost perfectly formed gem.’ The Daily Telegraph. ‘Hilarious low-down comedy …A mischievously hilarious piece of work.’ Time Out House is produced by Samantha Coughlan in association with Louise Chantal (Chantal Arts and Theatre Ltd).
The Canadian Press on House
‘The writing is wild, comic and crafted…hallucinatory.’Toronto Globe and Mail
‘The whole evening might be regarded as a sort of lunatic stand-up routine with the laughs coming as fast as the misfiring synapses in Vic’s head.’ The Edmonton Sun
‘House is a sort of knock-knock joke told by an anarchist kidder who knows that no-one’s ever home…the one-man comic nightmare.’ Edmonton Journal
The Press on House
“This is a tour de force.” -
Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
“Daniel MacIvor’s curious, bracing, unsettling monologue” -
Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard
“The writing that charts Victor's life is wired and wild...With his tales of a mother possessed by the devil, a father who is the saddest man in the world and a sister in love with a dog, MacIvor creates a complete world.” -
Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
“…The look-no-hands exhilaration of the writing…” -
Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
“A dark, comic production which takes the audience on a frenetic whirlwind” -
Clair Whitefield, MusicOmH.com
“The prodigiously talented Trevor White is a tour de force.” -
Clair Whitefield, MusicOmH.com
“This is a virtuoso performance, a terrific, no holds barred, terrifying performance.” -
Timothy Ramsden, Reviewsgate.com
“Trevor White captures exactly the blend of wild-eyed madness and dextrous story-telling to make the character believable, dangerous and fascinating in equal proportions.” -
Gerald Berkowitz, The Stage
“A virtuoso performance from Trevor White - all bulging eyes and twitchy hands - that gets under your skin.” -
Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
“Trevor White produces an amazingly rich performance...He sings, he shouts, he sighs and has the kind of facial expression and capacity to convey emotion through grimaces that only Jim Carrey could match.” -
Clair Whitefield, MusicOmH.com
“MacIvor’s quirky writing, widely acclaimed in his native Canada, benefits enormously from Trevor White’s Victor.” -
Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard
“Watching White is a master-class in acting...He is the hot ticket in this production and casting directors should be queuing up to catch him.” -
Clair Whitefield, MusicOmH.com
“As comfortable as cuddling an anaconda, a gripping 85 minutes.” -
Timothy Ramsden, Reviewsgate.com
“McIvor’s forceful blast is delivered with graduated levels of grab-and-release in a production by Josie Le Grice that lets the truth seep slowly out from behind the ghastly mask White’s Victor presents to the world.” -
Timothy Ramsden, Reviewsgate.com
“Unstable he might be, but Victor's memoirs make for great theatre.” -
Clair Whitefield, MusicOmH.com
“Pitched somewhere between a character study and a stand-up routine, Canadian Daniel MacIvor’s award-winning monologue play...directed to an unwavering pitch of manic intensity by Josie Le Grice” -
Gerald Berkowitz, The Stage
