5 stars
In a world where we constantly feel inadequate, confused, disoriented and abandoned on the technological autoroute, there is help and a joyful message at the Fringe. It is a self-help seminar on how to tap into the power of ignorance. Yes, mankind has been barking up the wrong tree all this time, questing after knowledge, seeking enlightenment.
"Are you confused?" asks the silky-voiced, reassuring man onstage. "If you don't understand, you're already using your power of ignorance. ... Confusion is the boulevard to ignorance" (via "the rumpus room of endarkenment"). And perfect ignorance, as you will learn in the course of this exquisitely constructed, perfectly daffy architecture of logic by Chris Gibbs and T.J. Dawe, is what you need not only for success and happiness, but life itself.
The assertions are provocative; for example, "without ignorance, everyone in this room would be dead." Vaguen (Gibbs, half of Hoopal) provides irreducible proof, numerous syllogisms, useful analogies, riddles, inspirational aphorisms (ig- mantras like "Duh" with deep breath) from the great ig-masters of history about how to rid yourself of unwanted knowledge and how to understand better the importance of a lack of understanding. Since only a tiny portion of the human brain is ever used, "isn't it better to rely on the 90 per cent that does nothing than the 10 per cent that's already busy?" This makes sense, and the man onstage has one of those silky, reassuring voices. He is here to help. There's a hysterical rigour to the process here, and Gibbs as Vaguen is the funniest performance I've seen at the Fringe. The Power Of Ignorance is bliss; join the ignorati.
Liz Nicholls
Edmonton Journal
