Winners & Losers is a glad, mad, sad fling

Quicky version

Scripted and improv'd by indie artistic directors Marcus Youssef of Neworld Theatre and his long-time buddy James (Jamie) Long of Theatre Replacement in Vancouver, Winners and Losers is a gong show of serious smart-ass verbal rivalry. The two actors spar wittily and waspishly over whether various people, places and objects in life -- Bernie Sanders, Canada, microwave ovens, their fathers -- are either winners or losers. After each actor's riposte, they ring a bell and conclude with a final boast of who won, who lost. Some exchanges are just seconds long, others take a few minutes or more. And all of the dialogue spit out at mach speed.

The arc of the show -- most of it pre-scripted, the rest of it seemingly spontaneous -- sees the men start off jocularly, waggish. Pub talk and bravado. But inexorably the spunk turns acrid and sardonic as they squabble over personal foibles, social status, whose success in life is more tumescent. 

The actors play themselves, or play at playing themselves. Regardless. Any 1st-world person who has had One. Good. Friend. in life who cuts to their core right quick but still, somehow, remains a confidante to think and laugh and suck back a beer with, well, they will smile and wince with pained delight at this remarkable and timely concept piece with all its verbal splash. 

Wordy version

Preliminary context : Just the title Winners and Losers sparks a wee metaphysical jolt. Ours is a world where countless jihadislam cults compete nightly for the news cycle. Followed by news of another cult figure, Donald Trump, whose name implies a wily card-shark. Speaking of trumpery, the Pope last week challenged whether such a xenophobe can even claim to be Christian. Can there be a clear winner from such a passel of news flashes like these? Is the Western notion of winning-vs-losing passe, an oxymoron, or just redundant in the Instagram world of the 21st century?

From the footlights : Scripted and improv'd by indie artistic directors Marcus Youssef of Neworld Theatre and his long-time buddy James (Jamie) Long of Theatre Replacement in Vancouver, Winners and Losers is a gong show of serious smart-ass verbal rivalry. The two actors spar wittily and waspishly over whether various people, places and objects in life -- Bernie Sanders, Canada, microwave ovens, their fathers -- are either winners or losers. After each actor's riposte, they ring a bell and conclude with a final boast of who won, who lost. Some exchanges are just seconds long, others take a few minutes or more. And all of the dialogue spit out at mach speed.

The arc of the show -- most of it pre-scripted, the rest seemingly spontaneous -- sees the men start off jocularly, waggish. Pub talk and bravado. But inexorably the spunk turns acrid and sardonic as they squabble over personal foibles, social status, whose success in life is more tumescent. 

The actors play themselves, or play at playing themselves. Regardless. Any 1st-world person who has had One. Good. Friend. in life who cuts to their core right quick but still, somehow, remains a confidante to think and laugh and suck back a beer with, well, they will smile and wince with pained delight at this remarkable and timely concept piece with all its verbal splash.

How it's all put together : To get to the moral heart of Winners and Losers one need but summon a synonym or two. Winner = victor, champion, conqueror. Loser = dupe, scapegoat, schlemiel. From Green Bay Packers iconic coach Vince Lombardi's "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing!" to the more vernacular "Winning isn't everything, but losing sucks!" 

Throw in a dose of testosterone and braggadocio about their one-hand prowess and one soon wonders whether what Youssef and Long are about is less on the level of "the courage to grapple with some aspect of morality or ethics" -- as Youssef's Neworld Theatre website proclaims -- than it is about pure-&-simple machismo, that scourge of patriarchal cultures NSEW that has prevailed over the centuries.

Like a contemporary update on the Laugh-In riffs of the 70's, Winners and Losers provides spitfire verbal antics and laughs galore to kick the night off. Later, if the ping pong match seems mildly contrived, the subsequent Andy Kaufman-esque faux wrestling match between the chubesque Youssef and weightlifter Long is a schtick that only works -- oddly and satirically -- because of the non-stop one-up, one-down jousting they carry off breathlessly for 90 minutes. 

Youssef is the spawn of an Egyptian dad who's been a rich RBC V-P in USA for decades. Lots of hand-outs still being gifted, and a fat inheritance down the road guaranteed. By contrast, Long is from macho Welsh/Irish working class roots whose dead ex-RCMP dad means he has but the usual initials to face at retirement : RRSP, CPP, OAS. 

Two actors, longtime friends, acting as actors but acting as friends, too -- where does the "acting" end, the "rehearsed" morph into "improv" or start to descend into core personal unrehearsed put-down? Not to mention how a friendship could ever survive night after night of new visceral zingers tossed at one another. 

Albeit quite a blurry gestalt, all this, Youssef maintains the show is "rooted in a presumption that in all of our lives, the choices we all make are meaningful and have real consequences." To marry their artistic dreams and do this show together is, of course, just one such choice, for better or for worse. Then Youssef adds with impish flip : "We also like to make people laugh."

What the show brings to the stage : Since its featured spot at the PuSh 2013 festival after premiering at Richmond's Gateway Theatre in 2012, W&L has toured not only across Canada and in New York, but also the UK, Germany, Ireland, Denmark's Aarhus Festival, Italy's INTERsection fest in Terni, and in Iceland. Of all this exposure Neworld's website proclaims : "This (international travel) is leading to new opportunities, (but) we are also thinking a lot about maintaining our connection to Vancouver, that beguiling teenage city we call home...We believe that it is not the voices of the big or powerful or corporate that ultimately matter; it's the stories of the people around us, in our multiple communities and neighbourhoods, however we might define them."

Quick abbreviated check-list of winner-loser yak-yak topics :

> Mayor Greg's bike-sharing scheme and helmet kiosks.

> Mexico zapatistas compared to Canadian indigenous people.

> Street smarts : West Hotel beer glass crunching natives or COPE / Green cocktail parties.

> Goldman Sachs 2008 (bust) -vs- 2015 ($10B bonuses to staff).

> Occupy Movement / Bernie Sanders.

> Assisted living / mentally challenged / Joe's Cafe on Commercial.

> DTES gentrification.

> Vancouver Metro real estate instant millionaires. 

Acting pin-spots : A more complementary pair of characters could not likely be found or produced. Jamie the nervous-tic footy and arms-behind-the-head \ throw them forward, hands-up wonderingly and aggressively... a fully animated Alpha -vs- Marcus the sit-back leg-crosser and musing Rodan (though by far the more deft and subtle ping-ponger -- nice wrist english).

What's both intriguing if at the same time slightly troublesome about Winners and Losers is precisely the conceit that makes it compelling. The audience is not dumb. We conclude convincingly, to ourselves, when the lines are rehearsed, when there's spontaneity. This theatrical dichotomy creates a bit of cognitive dissonance : where does "real" start, if ever, amidst so much rehearsed familiarity?

But in the end I think what I raise is but a quibble. This theatre performance is creative. Original. Inspired. Clever. Touching. Perhaps nothing quite like you may ever have experienced before on the local stage. Not to oversell it. But it is unique, no question, and kudos to Messrs. Long & Youssef for their vision to put this together.

Who gonna like : This is theatre for folks who like experimentation. The social values debates that the companies want to encourage are a central part of this production package, surely. But mostly the show engages and embraces and involves the head-&-heart on a personal level as between friends who hold grudges because they come from quite different backgrounds. Financial as well as emotional. They push back against one another gustily but lovingly, too. Smart stuff up close and personal. 

Particulars : Written by Marcus Youssef and James Long. Co-produced by Theatre Replacement with Neworld Theatre in association with Crow's Theatre (Toronto). At the Historic Theatre \ The Cultch. On through February 27th. Run-time 90 minutes, no intermission. Schedule information & tickets via thecultch.com or by phoning the box office after 12:00 noon @ 604.251.1363.

Production team :  Director Chris Abraham.  Lighting Designer Jonathan Ryder.  Production Manager Elia Kirby.

Performers : James Long. Marcus Youssef.

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