Julia Burgisser
A Tension to Detail begins with our storyteller for the night, Gerard Harris, informing us about what we will hear. There’s warnings of mature and immature content, and also that while he confesses a gullible nature, believing everything he is told, we should be careful to trust the story and not the teller.
It will be a show about storytelling, as much of a show about his own stories, and indeed the stories start from the beginning as we are led through his life from birth.
We plumb the depths of awkward childhood crushes, sexually experimental teenage years, and adult confusion in dating. The darkness of the topics are explored with the lightest of touches and we find ourselves laughing in unexpected places. He wills us to traverse the surreal with him, and as we follow his voice deeper into his journey it enthralls and captures the imagination with images of green pulsating hearts and gives the audience tingles from head to toe. It’s an expertly guided journey as Harris, ever mindful of the spiritual and the atheist spectrum in his audience, checks in with us and encourages us to suspend our beliefs and disbelief in the enjoyment of the story.
Woven through his life stories are lessons about telling our own, he warns us away from looking for meaning in everything and instead to decide what our story will be and then go out to find it. Leaving 90% of the facts out leaves you with a story and what kind of story it is depends entirely on which facts you choose to leave in. We are captured by the image of creating our own, however, I know mine certainly wouldn’t be as entertainingly full of bulldog attacks, doorknob treachery and lobster cooking moral dilemmas.
From hilarious confessions of a hopeless love life to the nearly unbelievable dramatic escapes, A Tension to Detail is a storybook ride of twists and turns. An unforgettable story told by a master craftsman. You should definitely head along, trust in the story if not the teller and settle in for the ride.
We plumb the depths of awkward childhood crushes, sexually experimental teenage years, and adult confusion in dating. The darkness of the topics are explored with the lightest of touches and we find ourselves laughing in unexpected places. He wills us to traverse the surreal with him, and as we follow his voice deeper into his journey it enthralls and captures the imagination with images of green pulsating hearts and gives the audience tingles from head to toe. It’s an expertly guided journey as Harris, ever mindful of the spiritual and the atheist spectrum in his audience, checks in with us and encourages us to suspend our beliefs and disbelief in the enjoyment of the story.
Woven through his life stories are lessons about telling our own, he warns us away from looking for meaning in everything and instead to decide what our story will be and then go out to find it. Leaving 90% of the facts out leaves you with a story and what kind of story it is depends entirely on which facts you choose to leave in. We are captured by the image of creating our own, however, I know mine certainly wouldn’t be as entertainingly full of bulldog attacks, doorknob treachery and lobster cooking moral dilemmas.
From hilarious confessions of a hopeless love life to the nearly unbelievable dramatic escapes, A Tension to Detail is a storybook ride of twists and turns. An unforgettable story told by a master craftsman. You should definitely head along, trust in the story if not the teller and settle in for the ride.
