A growing body of evidence suggests that adult men, to the detriment of their mental health, are struggling to create and maintain friendships. Beermaker Labatt’s latest marketing campaign even prods and incents men to rekindle lapsed friendships . . . by reconnecting with their “buds” over a Budweiser, of course.
After visiting Soulpepper recently, I have a modest and more life-affirming counterproposal: give lapsed friends tickets to see King Gilgamesh & The Man of the Wild, co-produced with Tria Theatre.
This mesmerizing and unexpected show centers not one, but two pairs of “buds” – one contemporary and one ancient – within a single immersive narrative.
It’s a concert. It’s a dramedy. It’s a legendary epic poem. And it’s also a kinetic comic book and a moving psychodrama.
Almost any “bud” will struggle to tear their eyes and ears from it. But be warned: watching King Gilgamesh & The Man of the Wild is like drinking a heady wine from a fire hose. There’s a LOT to take in – and even more to ponder – in this brilliant marriage of the epic of Gilgamesh (the ancient Mesopotamian poem which happens to be the first story ever written down) and the contemporary tale of Ahmed Moneka and Jesse LaVercombe, two of the show’s three creators.
The ancient Iraqi epic of Gilgamesh is not a monolithic or pristine text. It’s the iterative fruit of storytellers from disparate Middle Eastern cultures from the 18th to the 7th century BCE. Their successive acts of creation, accretion, amalgamation and translation yielded what we know today as Gilgamesh. But written as they are on fragile clay tablets, even the best and fullest versions of this story are incomplete and fragmentary. So naturally, their gaps and transpositions invite imagination and interpolation.
Enter King Gilgamesh & The Man of the Wild.
The play takes its title directly from the epic poem – and opens boldly, by inserting into empty narrative space a toe-tapping mini-concert. The real-world Moneka Arabic Jazz band grabs us with a swinging sonic celebration that whisks us from the Soulpepper stage to a timeless orange and brown-hued story space where the tale’s cross-genre, multi-story magic can happen.
The epic of Gilgamesh is best known for its first half, which tells the story of the tyrannical and self-focused King Gilgamesh of Uruk, and how Enkidu the Man of the Wild — created to be Gilgamesh’s challenger – instead becomes his steadfast friend and most loyal companion, to the benefit of both men and the people of Uruk. But in King Gilgamesh & The Man of the Wild, this mythic tale is the second story we encounter. The first is the contemporary and local origin story of Moneka and LaVercombe’s real-world friendship. After the opening mini-concert, we begin to see how this pair of outsider immigrants – Ahmed the Iraqi Muslim and Jesse the Jewish American – form their unlikely friendship after a chance meeting in a coffee shop in Toronto.
The magic of the production, which was conceived and authored by Moneka, LaVercombe and Seth Bockley and is deftly directed by Bockley, lies in the way these two stories are made one. At one moment, Moneka and LaVercombe are playing fictionalized versions of themselves in Toronto . . . and in the next, they have morphed into Gilgamesh and Enkidu operating in myth-space. Then they morph back, and so on. The implication is clear and powerful: men are forging unlikely but enduring bonds of friendship right here and right now, just as they did once in distant epic mythology. And the story of becoming buds – no matter who or when or where or when – is replete with power, majesty, and even divinity that we should celebrate and maybe revere.
In this timeless tale, the actors blink in and out of phase. When they are Ahmed and Jesse, they warm into good-natured ribbing, paired with weighty discussion. They drop masculine armour in favour of a touching vulnerability (Brené Brown would be proud). And when they are Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the stage is a kinetic comic book, marked by bold speech and stylized, freeze-frame conflict. The duo strike Jack Kirby power poses, while the band fills the backdrop with sonorous or cacophonic sound effects.
Both halves of the story – the mythology and the metropolitan – blend insouciance and connection. Both are emotive, moving and hilarious. And the show’s two stars are universally brilliant. Moneka is unaffected and effortlessly disarming, whether he is playing the frenetic frontman of the Moneka Arab Jazz band, the fierce yet regal Gilgamesh, or Ahmed, the genial immigrant coffee shop vendor with the twinkle in his eye. The earnest LaVercombe is utterly different, yet in every way, he is Moneka’s equal: whether he is playing his sincere pianist self, the power-posing Man of the Wild, or Jesse, the questing out-of-work American actor.
This multidisciplinary tale is inspiring and discussion-creating. And this is true not just of the more famous first part of the epic of Gilgamesh, in which Gilgamesh and Enkidu (like Ahmed and Jesse) form their bond of friendship. The “weird” and less well-known second half of the poem (so described on-stage by Moneka in his role as Ahmed) is also brought to life in this production. It focuses on the mythological and contemporary quests for meaning that ensue when the bonds of the first half have been severed. (This is something which all “buds” must face, I suppose . . . which brings us right back around to the Budweiser campaign.)
King Gilgamesh & The Man of the Wild is propulsive, immersive and life-affirming.
It’s real art, backed by a real band (a real good band). And it’s centered on the presence and power of real friendship . . . paired with the courage to craft our own narratives.
With this on stage, who needs Budweiser?
King Gilgamesh & The Man of the Wild runs until August 6, 2023. Reserve tickets on soulpepper.ca.
© Scott Sneddon, Sesayarts Magazine, 2023
