Noise, Theatre and Peter Woods

Peter Woods has been avoiding theatre for the better part of the past couple of years. This is a bit of a pity as the playwright/actor/noise artist has written some very provocative, progressive experimental stuff in the past in shows like Systems and Made In The Mouth.

This summer, Woods returns to the stage for an all-new collection of experimental shorts. Standingstillorworse. The three days prior to the fourth fo July, Woods will be performing a program of four pieces. 

Woods’ press release on the program states that the shorts “straddle the line between music and theatre.” So okay, but if this is Woods, they might also straddle the line between music and art noise, which is also very, very cool. 

The narratives that play out each revolve around a central image. Here’s Wodds’ descriptions:

“a person on stage slowly moving through a stack of identical papers, a pipe slowly trying to grind through a sheet of metal and failing, a mouth filled to the point of choking with candy, a glimpse of a crazed being let loose.”

Okay, so reading the above and imagining it performed in a tiny, little space in Riverwest and already I’m looking forward to this one. I really, really miss experimental theatre. It makes it to the stage so rarely. Sounds like summer. Stuff like this only ever makes it to the stage in summer.

The final piece in the set is Pitya short in which Woods paints himself out of existence usingblack paint and the right kind of lighting, presumably. I’d read an early draft of the script some time ago. Looking forward to seeing it onstage with the rest of it.

Standingstillorworse runs July 1^st – 3^rd at the Borg Ward on 823 West National Avenue. Admission is $5. Doors open at 7pm for each show.