Gut Punch Theatre
Review of the Playwrights Canada Press paperback edition (October 19, 2017)

Cliff Cardinal's Huff begins with a staged suicide attempt. The stage lights come up as a wrist-bound Cardinal staggers onto the stage with a plastic bag duct-taped around his head. It is clearly evident from his breathing that the seal around his neck is airtight. There doesn't appear to be any safety net (the bound wrists are behind his back) and only the intervention of an audience member (after a cry of desperation) will save the performer. How do you follow that?

Huff mostly follows the saga of three brothers Charlie, Wind and Huff as they negotiate life on a Native Reserve seeking relief from abuse and violence at home and at a residential school. This 'relief' often involves solvent and alcohol abuse. The theme of an often malevalent Trickster character from indigenous mythology runs throughout the play as things take turns for the worse at many stages. This theatrical experience is traumatic and draining and yet exhilarating and euphoric at times. This is maybe not least because the performer and the audience all survive at the end, although not all of the characters portrayed.

See photograph at https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/428280736_797831509051780_397...
"If you're a little upset, wait 'till you see what happens next." Cliff Cardinal takes a moment during a performance of "Huff" before moving on to the next vignette. Photo sourced from The Grand Theatre, London, Ontario.

Huff is a tour-de-force solo performance with playwright/actor Cliff Cardinal enacting over 20+ roles during its 70 minute time frame. My favourite bit was the portrayal of a vicious stink-throwing skunk who is stumbled upon by the brothers as they escape from an accidental abandoned house arson.

WIND: Come on, let's go home.
Sees something...
Hey.
Do you see that?
It looks like a cat or a skunk.
Skunk?
Skuuunk!
The SKUNK stands poised. He licks the air! He holds his tail like a shotgun!
SKUNK: Whoa!
Whoa!
Whoa!
Don't move, man.
Don't you fuckin' move.
You think I won't do this shit?
I will, man.
I'll give you a mouthful of my sweet skunk juices right fuckin here.
HUFF: Whoa!
Skunks can talk?

I've now seen Cardinal in 3 different one-man performances of his plays in the past year. I find it hard to separate the staging from the playscripts. You can read my review of The Land Acknowledgement aka William Shakespeare’s As You Like It: A Radical Retelling here. The most recent work, (Everyone I Love Has) A Terrible Fate (Befall Them) (premiered late 2023) is not yet published, but you can read a theatrical review here.

Trivia and Links
Cliff Cardinal provides a background interview for his most recent performances of Huff at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario, Canada which you can watch here.

The next performances of Huff will be at Crow's Theatre, Toronto, Canada in April 2024. Further information and tickets are available here. ( )