Live and in person at VideoCabaret, the Deanne Taylor Theatre, 10 Busy St. Toronto, Ont. Produced by VideoCabaret. Playing until Feb. 16, 2025.
Created and performed by Cliff Cardinal
Directed and dramaturged by Karin Randoja
Lighting designer and Stage Manager, Andrew Dollar
Sound designer, William Fallon
Costume designer, Sage Paul
Cliff Cardinal is as watchable and unpredictable as ever.
Cliff Cardinal bounds on stage to announce that there is no CBC Special, he only used that as a ruse to get us to come and see his show. I smile at the familiarity and quickness of the confession. In his play William Shakespeare’s As You Like it, a radical re-relling by Cliff Cardinal, Cardinal was one hour into his Land Acknowledgement before he confessed to the audience that there was ‘no As You Like It.’ With Cliff Cardinal’s CBC Special he reveals the truth at the get-go. The audience is definitely not short-changed with the results. The show is composed of his singing some of his original songs and telling personal stories about his family: his Aunt Nessa who loved a Coke and the Price is Right, and especially host Bob Barker; his uncle John who was a scientist who studied climate change, but drank too much. Each story is about people dealing with life the best that they could. They are told with compassion, a disarming smile and just a hint that there might be a trick. We aren’t sure and that’s part of the adventure of a Cliff Cardinal show. The songs are heartfelt and raw.
This version of Cliff Cardinal’s CBC Special is more pared down from the last time I saw it in Kingston. There he had a CBC logo in the background. Here there is none, to go with the fact there is no CBC special. Cliff Cardinal seems to tweak his work from production to production. This version had references to HUFF about childhood abuse. He had performed it 200 times and said he was not going to perform it again. It took too much out of him. He said with every performance he relived the experiences. He performed it because he had obligations. One assumed he was obligated to the people who programmed the show. But upon reflection I think it’s closer to be obligated to telling the story of those people who endure that abuse, to get their story out there and to honour what they went through.
There is an intentional raggedness to Cliff Cardinal’s CBC Special as if performed by the seat of the pants giving it a sense of being impromptu. He decided during the show not to include a story about one of his uncles. He just called out to his stage manager, Andrew Dollar, that he was not going to include it. Whether or not he does that for every show, doesn’t matter. It’s just part of the show for whatever reason Cliff Cardinal decides. Cliff Cardinal and his director Karin Randoja know what they are doing at all times. Cardinal is an artist who has important stories and songs to tell about family, ‘sisters’ and resilience. He does it with a beguiling smile, inviting us in but keeping us on our toes.
Produced by VideoCabaret.
Plays until February 16, 2025.
Running time: 90 minutes (approx.)