Brain
Kaj Hasselriis | CBC News | Posted: July 15, 2016 3:30 AM | Last Updated: July 15, 2016
THREE STARS | 'Brain' tackles a truly fringe topic but it's hard to digest
Rating: ★★★
Company: Brendan McLeod, Toronto
Genre: Storytelling
Venue: 17 — PTE (Colin Jackson Studio)
Count on a fringe theatre festival to have a show about a guy who contemplates molesting children.
That's basically what Brendan McLeod's monologue Brain is all about.
It starts pretty generically. McLeod, dressed all in black, even brags that he's been told he's got a generic face, "perfect for commercials." But after he recounts a somewhat ordinary, conservative, God-fearing upbringing in Alberta, he delves into his adult struggles with obsessive compulsive disorder.
[McLeod] speaks so fast and pauses so little that I had a hard time digesting his story and connecting the dots of his fuzzy logic. - Kaj Hasselriis
In McLeod's case, it's taken the form of mulling over what it might be like to abuse kids.
McLeod's main mental problem is that he thinks way too much ("Up here, anything exists, anything is possible"). The problem with Brain is that McLeod doesn't articulate his thinking patterns well enough. He speaks so fast and pauses so little that I had a hard time digesting his story and connecting the dots of his fuzzy logic.
If you want to challenge yourself with a mind bender that tackles a truly fringe topic, you might appreciate Brain more than I did. Just be warned that McLeod doesn't censor the specifics of his transgressive thoughts.