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“Toronto Fringe Festival Review: “Belize” Review by Joanne Mackay-Bennett”
July 06, 2003

When the play’s writer and solo performer David Austin steps into the light on stage, he takes a minute to empty his pockets and to place their contents on the floor. Sitting down on the single prop, a stool, he begins his conversation with the audience, themselves seated in a semi-lit house, with a friendly and casual, “Hi! How are ya doin’?”
In “Belize,” David Austin performs David Austin. Rather, Austin retells a sorry period in his life when he was addicted to alcohol, marijuana, crack and sex (often simultaneously it seems) and took a trip to Belize for the same reason that others might check in to the Betty Ford clinic: to get clean. For the next 90 minutes, Austin recounts and mimes his drug-induced and self-loathing dance with death that at times takes on the characteristics of a tropical delirium tremens.

Suffice to say that Austin’s trip to Belize was, by and large, his tripping through Belize. After numerous descriptions of the con game he played with himself that allowed him to continue living in the druggy and dangerous haze of self-deception, Austin experiences a rare moment of generosity when he meets an artisan who gives him a badly-needed pair of sandals free of charge. “These are for you to keep,” the sandal-maker tells him, leaving Austin touched at his memory of the pure selflessness of the gesture. Later, after falling in love with the pregnant and crack-addicted Tanya, Austin expresses similar vulnerability as he relates his first look at the tiny and fragile newborn.

Director and collaborator Chris Abraham’s deft touch in shaping the material allows Austin to change pace and tone, establishing both a more nuanced performance and a more intimate connection with his audience. The home video at the end of the show of Tanya, now Austin’s ex-wife, and their 2 small children, now 10 and 11 years old, provides a clever finish to a life episode that has been rewound and replayed for an audience.

But “Belize” is not “Elaine Stritch at Liberty” nor, perhaps more fittingly, “I, Claudia” unmasked. Too much repetitive and self-indulgent story-telling and too little self-reflection leaves us wondering whether Abraham’s intelligent direction might have been better put to use had the material been theatrically stronger.

Yet where some may find the reality quotient of “Belize” precariously verging on a staged version of “Survivor,” screw worms and all, others may see the faint glimmer of salvation in this modern-day re-telling of a prodigal son’s return to Etobicoke.

“Belize” runs at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse until July 13. For tickets and specific times call the Fringe Hotline at 416-966-1062.