The Ivory Tower Power Hour is a talent-free zone.
In this mostly one-woman show (a couple of back-up dancers join her at one point), creator/performer Dr. Heather McLean, who is a real-life academic, tries to send up “higher education in late capitalism.”
She presents a contest in which three desperate, ethically compromised professors from the faculty of arts at Slurry Fields University compete for $5,000 in funding. Dr. Helen Hust, a world leader in “trauma-informed movement for entrepreneurialism” gyrates her way through her pitch, a proposal to sell krill gel, which has psychedelic properties as well as health benefits. The pompous Dr. Toby Sharp, a “specialist in urban anarchism”, wants to build a luxury spa on campus and house students in trailers. And Dr. Sheelagh Mclean, who has investigated the role of the sasquatch in erotic feminist poetry, proposes Only Beavs, “a beaver lodge for precarious beavers” — and an AI data centre.
This description might make it sound like The Ivory Tower Power Hour is funny and even pointed in its satire, but it is not. Playwright/performer McLean throws out a bunch of references but, because she fails to develop them in a narrative context that would make them resonant, they’re just… noise. Similarly, her characters are completely lacking in depth. There’s no emotional reality base to any of them. I know! I know that these characters are clowns, but the best clowns are profound, and most of the good ones are vulnerable in some way. There’s no real character in McLean’s characters: they’re just her dressing up and being goofy.
Remaining performances: September 17 (5:00 p.m.), 19 (1:00 p.m.), and 20 (5:45 p.m.) Tickets and information.
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