Portrait of a men’s movement recruit: Angry Alan at Northern Light, a review

By Liz Nicholls, .ca

There are so many reasons to dismiss a guy like Roger, the protagonist of Angry Alan, a smart, surprising little stinger of a play, and the latest in Northern Light Theatre’s ‘Making A Monster’ season.

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I mean, c’mon, how does a guy with half a brain get won over, by the preposterous claims of the ‘men’s rights’ movement? And yet….

As a perfectly judged performance by Cody Porter reveals, in this Trevor Schmidt production of Penelope Skinner’s 2018 Edinburgh Fringe hit, Roger is a mark, ripe for recruitment. And his radicalization is a win for toxic masculinity, a monster in innocuously reasonable online camouflage.    

Roger, as he explains at the outset, is stuck. He used to have a snazzy job with AT&T. Now he’s the third assistant store manager at a Safeway, “the man you can yell at.” He’s estranged, sort of (for reasons he doesn’t understand), from his son who lives with his ex-wife. He feels indefinitely stalled, under-appreciated. He’s a frustrated, chronic underachiever with bargain basement self-esteem, a simmering sense of injustice, and a building cache of resentment about his life.

Angry Alan is a fictional surrogate for Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate and their ilk in the online world, captured by sound and projection designer Amelia Chan. And when he stumbles on the website of the title, Roger gets the acknowledgment for which he’s been hungering. He has an epiphany, a life-changer, what he calls “a red pill moment.”

Cody Porter in Angry Alan, Northern Light Theatre. Photo by Brianne Jang, BB Collective Photography

The “Google vortex” leads Roger to Angry Alan’s explanation — “with data!” — of what’s gone wrong with his life. Roger has been in a cage, the “gynocentric sexism” created by the excessive outreach of feminism and “the witch hunts of #MeToo.” And “the red pill doesn’t solve the problem,” he says. “I’m still in the cage. But I know about the cage….”

Angry Alan acknowledges, validates, and gives voice to Roger’s frustrations. “Hey, I’m Roger. I feel like I could have done so much more with my life. I feel inadequate. I feel like a failure. And until this morning I didn’t even know that’s what I was feeling.”

In Porter, the play finds an ideal Roger, a Roger who makes the seductiveness of the men’s movement plausible. He’s not some sort of aggressively male maniac, on the make. He’s a decent guy, sincere, trustworthy, likeable even. When called out by his partner Courtney for his new preoccupation with the online world, he still helps with the dishes. He has no beef with her recent discovery of feminism in a women’s studies course at the local community college. He’s rueful, even genuinely wounded, by the alienation of his son.

Cody Porter in Angry Alan, Northern Light Theatre. Photo by Brianne Jang, BB Collective Photography

As Porter’s performance reveals, Roger’s susceptibility to the narrative proposed by Angry Alan has a certain (albeit maddening) quality of innocence about it. That it’s compelling to Roger makes a cautionary tale of recruitment of  “ordinary” men to a preposterous cause funny, yes, but a whole lot scarier. What this says about developments across the border is downright chilling.   

Schmidt’s production starts with Roger at a microphone, with illustrations on the outsized computer screen where YouTube photos, chapter headings, and text message exchanges with his son appear. There’s a web of strings attached to the screen, metaphorical and literal, as part of Schmidt’s design, dominated by a conference table strewn with water bottles and paper clutter. The inventive sound design by Amelia Chan has the suspenseful clang of a TV thriller. The lighting by Rae McCallum has an online flicker about it.

What Porter brings to Roger’s monologue is the air of evaluating, of thinking thoughts in the moment as he revisits the story of his “enlightenment.” The highlight is his re-creation of excitement about his weekend at a men’s movement conference in Cincinnati. OMG, the real Angry Alan will be speaking live! A dream come true for Roger.

I’m going to stop telling you about the story, just to say that this is a play with a real kicker of an ending. A quick, gut-punch theatre thriller.

REVIEW

Angry Alan

Theatre: Northern Light Theatre

Written by: Penelope Skinner

Directed by: Trevor Schmidt

Starring: Cody Porter

Where: Studio Theatre, Fringe Arts Barns, 10330- 84 Ave.

Running: through Feb. 8

Tickets: northernlighttheatre.com