Burning Hearts - Nanaimo Fringe Fest - A Review

"It begins in darkness, and it ends in darkness"

So begins the play, appropriately set in the intimate lower den of the Harbour City Theater where we are guided through an existential journey into the nature of the heart. It is one of the 48 shows playing this fringe festival, and one that is not to be missed if you can help it.

A ghost is our host, and his intention is to find his beating heart; or rather what it was that gave him life. As he enacts a series of vignettes, each exploring a life as it contacts the inevitability of change, transformation and death, we are forced to consider what it is that makes our own hearts burn. That's one interpretation, anyway. The show invites you to it, yet is void of the pretension that other ambiguously deep acts of poetry may reveal. Brent Hirose, ourone-man-show, knows what he's doing - he is a master conductor and clearly a born performer from the first beat - and knows very well what he's saying, but you get out of it what you are able to take in. Poets have an advantage here, as well as people who enjoy audiobooks and/or Terrance Malick films.

To be honest, much of it was beyond me. It was just many words for my visual mind to process the meaning of it all. But what I did comprehend was deep shit and produced feelings that I can't really put in words. The effect the overall experience had on me was such that, during the play, I had come to a clear resolution about a dilemma that had been haunting me for a while. Just sayin'.

What's for sure is that I felt like I was taking part in something profound, and I know the audience felt it too. In one particularly poignant scene, Brent improvises a truly moving eulogy for an audience member's probably deceased grandfather (he only asked for the name), which makes the man and his family tearful. A risk for sure, but it felt totally authentic in the context of the play and ended up being one of the most memorable moments.

It was just a damn shame there weren't more of us - which is why the purpose of getting this review out as fast as I can, to encourage people to go to the next - and last - showing here at 7:15pm. Get there!