The Slip-Knot
TJ
Dawe is a genial, slightly dorky everyman who takes the ordinary happenings
of his life and spins them into mesmerizing one-man shows.
He may wander onto a stage looking a little like a lost puppy but once there
he commands it like Nelson at Trafalgar. Dawe will be fondly remembered for
his previous Fringe outings Tired Clichés and last year's Labrador.
He's back this year with The Slip-Knot.
As he talks, Dawe turns on three lights fastened to his microphones - red,
green and blue. Each represents a different character - or more correctly
a different time in his life. One has him just moving to Toronto and getting
a job as a "merchandiser" (read: stock boy) for Shopper's Drug Mart,
another answering the phone as a mail tracer for Canada Post and the third,
as a kid, driving a big truck as a summer job. He moves between the three
lights, changing time and character with the swiftness of an electric shock.
Any attempt at re-creating these stories in a review will only make them sound
mundane, but this fascinating display of charismatic delivery is anything
but humdrum. Never has a job a stock boy been rendered quite so ironic and
funny. Answering the phone at Canada Post, he has to put up with a determined
elderly lady who mailed some meat to a friend -which was then lost. And she
keeps phoning him because he is the only one who listens.
Some of Dawe's throw-away, off-
kilter observations are hilarious. Others are stories that are spinoffs of other
stories but take on a life of their own.
Like his drug-induced attempt to explain, in his mind, to the dark Turkish cleric
Nicholas how he becomes a saint and a fat, white, right jolly old elf who lives
at the North Pole and once a year flies through the skies, being pulled by reindeer,
delivering toys to good little boys and girls. But you gotta be there.
Dawe speaks at a remarkably rapid clip. But at one point, about halfway through this hugely enjoyable 75 minutes, he begins to speed up and for five minutes, characters and words flood onto that stage at a blistering clip. You wonder how the human brain is capable of such a feat. When he finally ended the segment the audience burst into loud and sustained applause.
Dawe is an amazing talent and surely one of the best monologists plying the trade anywhere.
Colin Maclean
The Edmonton Sun
August 17, 2001 Vol 24 No 138
