Production: Boom

Company: Infinity Live Productions

Written & Directed by: Andrew Connor

Cast: Andrew Connor

Theatre: Performance Works

Showing: Sept 7, 9, 10, 12, 13

Reviewed by: Colette Gunson (Vancouver Correspondent - Canada)

Andrew Connor makes his solo show debut in Boom, the tale of a sentimental bomb-maker's tangled relations with the calculating denizens of his desperate hometown.  Audiences follow the rise and fall of New Rockwell as plans to build a state-of-the-art spaceport bring the promise of new jobs and revitalizing infrastructure to this dying city. Technological utopianism is the prevailing attitude amongst a community that is abuzz with discussions about how everyone will benefit from this new project.

Through a series of back-to-back conversations between the various townsfolk including the mayor and his secretary and the bomb-maker and his inquisitive niece, Connor explores the complicated relationships between the state, big business, technology and society. Although none of the characters are overly engaging and some more annoying than funny, Connor does display some admirable talent playing seven or eight different personalities. During the sixty-minute performance, Connor morphs from one character to the next, never once blurring the edges between them.

Connor’s costume—an amalgamation of all of his characters—was more distracting than helpful. I would have preferred a simple outfit and a little audience imagination to the dreadful ensemble of a button-up dress shirt, rolled up kaki slacks, purple striped tights and a floral print skirt finished off with pigtail braids and horn-rimmed glasses.  Then again, I’m sure it earned a few laughs.

Despite its faults, Boom is an intelligent satire of society’s dependence on destructive technologies, encouraging audiences to take a more critical view of technology and our relationship to it.