Enter The Chamber At Your Own Risk

Friday night, there's a slight chill outside as sixty-something CreComm students enter the Rachel Browne Theatre for a night of entertainment. Little did they know what they were in for.

This year, the In The Chamber series put out a show called Last Men. The show consisted of two pieces, the first, called The Last Man in Krakendorf, and the second, The Last Man in Puntarenas. Both pieces were one man performances, centered around men having an identity crisis.

The show begins with a peculiar and seemingly completely unrelated scene as we witness a couple in bed fighting over the covers which leads into one of the most awkward handjob scenes I could fathom. After about a minute and a half the "woman" exits the room and we see actor Steven Ratzlaff fighting a disembodied voice as he screams from the bed that he still has chaos in him.

The first play starred Gordon Tanner as a frustrated businessman as he works through confused feelings talking to a video camera. Tanner's character is going to send this video to his boss if he doesn't get arrested first and so the entire time he battles between not bothering to finish recording, and finishing in time.

Tanner delivers a passionate speech about the treatment of hogs on hog farms and about the business system in general, presenting us with the idea of a new and old system. Both systems consisted of sections, the old system; Who Fucked Up? You Fucked Up. You're Fired. and the new system consisted mainly of we all fucked up together, why did we all fuck up together, and what did you do to cause us all to fuck up together.

Another idea that Tanner offers us is one that his character claims to be the drive behind human error, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Both funny points and well explained, however, after this point in the play Tanner slowly lost my attention.
In a well acted and interesting performance Tanner's energy doesn't let down once, but one can only take so much. The entire play was a monologue and after a while begins to sound preachy. I think it definitely could've been a little bit shorter and it would've been more successful.

The second performance starred Steven Ratzlaff, and to be totally honest that's probably the most I can tell you. Ratzlaff as well delivers a well acted monologue.. that seems to never end. He gets into terms far too complicated to continue to hold the attention of the average audience member. Ratzlaff is giving a speech to collegues at a sort of dinner party and can't seem to stay on topic or within the boundaries of typical politeness.

Ratzlaff talks about the loss of his son, as well as his wife leaving him and their relationship's deterioration. He talks, well, a lot really, and by the end of it all I wasn't really sure what exactly to take away from what I'd seen.

Both actors did a superb job performing, and their energy was fantastic, you could feel their words as they spoke, however, their words began to lose effect as we drew closer to an hour in each monologue. I wasn't a huge fan of the production, but I would have to say I would see those guys act in another play anyday.