By Stephen Weir
Walter Borden, the perfect Black stage actor in Canada, is at the moment busy performing in entrance of stay audiences and educating folks from the diaspora. At 81 he proclaims, “I’m the mirror of your internal fact – I’m you!”
Nevertheless, there was a notable problem on the Sunday matinee attended by the Caribbean Digicam. Virtually all the people within the Tarragon Theatre viewers have been white, and a major variety of them have been older than the octogenarian actor standing earlier than them.
The play is titled ‘The Final Epistle of Tightrope Time,’ and in keeping with director Peter Hinton-Davis, “It’s Walter’s letter to the world. However as a substitute of being a mere memoir, which seems backward, his epistle additionally seems ahead to illuminating one’s calling in life.”
“It’s an autobiographical 90-some-minute-long monologue. It’s set outdoors of a parking zone ticket sales space the place a stooped-over attendant (Borden) opens the play by sitting down on a stool to get comfortable as he tells the viewers his life story.
Not all of what Borden says is true. He talks within the voice of 10 totally different characters: the fire-and-brimstone preacher, the younger girl who has turned to prostitution as a result of she will be able to’t get welfare to feed her youngsters, and he could or could not have been the function mannequin for a male streetwalker, proudly speaking in regards to the variety of “hand jobs” he has delivered.
Wow, give this man a Mavor Moore Award for delivering traces continuous. Walter can actually discuss, wax poetically, and ship old-style rap. It’s an exhaustive hour-and-a-half efficiency with out cue playing cards, prompters, or scripts Scotch-taped to the stage. After all, he has had a variety of follow; he spent the final 4 1/2 years working along with his producers on the script. A lot of it comes from an early 1986 model he carried out right here in Canada referred to as ‘Tightrope Time Ain’t Nuthin’ Extra Than Some Itty Bitty Insanity Between Your Twilight & Your Daybreak.’”
“It’s straightforward to see that a lot of the storyline relies on his involvement within the hippy-era civil rights motion. All through, he offers with the experiences of being queer and Black.
In direction of the tip of the play, an Egyptian god projection seems on the again wall of the set. The god tells Borden, ‘Life begins with a bang, and on the finish? Your life is only a smile.’
Borden describes himself as a Black-Indigenous actor. He was born and raised in Nova Scotia again in 1942. The actor, playwright, and poet has acquired quite a few accolades, together with the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal and the African Nova Scotia Music Heritage Award. Borden additionally acquired the Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award in 2006. In the identical yr, he was named a Member of the Order of Canada, and in 2007, he acquired an honorary Physician of Civil Regulation diploma.
The Sunday play ended with a standing ovation and calls for for a curtain name. The viewers understood it, obtained it and cherished it. The Diaspora has till October fifteenth to find Walter Borden. The Tarragon Theatre is positioned at 30 Bridgman Ave, Toronto, south of Casa Loma
