It’s not every night that you’re only one of three people in the theatre—four counting the person
onstage. You would expect, given the small crowd, that the energy of only one man might not be
able to fill the entire Wellington Street Theatre. Think again. The Hack, starring H. Benjamin Ellis as Harrison, is a drug-addled fervour of disillusionment and isolation. The show is based on real-life stories from H. Benjamin Ellis’ stint as a nighttime cabby, as told to writerand director Charles Robertson.
Combining Ellis’ experiences with dramatic fiction, Robertson creates a play that is far from another
day-in-the-life of a cab driver. The Hack follows Harrison’s self-destructive, turbulent life through the monotony of day-to-day routine and the desperate search for an alternative.
Harrison is an embittered cabby who wants nothing more than to end his nightly toils. He’s searched for relief in all the wrong places: hard drugs, alcohol and promiscuous women. But Harrison isn’t deterred, as he creates more and more fantasies to satiate his desire for escapism. Finally, he decides screenwriting is his ticket out of cab driving. He starts to write, but attempt after attempt just frustrates him further, and every unfinished script makes him more dissatisfied with his life.
Though Harrison’s struggles to write and his endless soul-searching are the threads that bind this otherwise fragmented production together, we see him in many different venues. Harrison inhabits a nightmarish reincarnation of Kingston, full of strip bars, prostitutes and shady watering holes. We see Harrison visit this entire seedy underworld both as an outsider in his taxi and as a drunken participant on the streets.
The stage allows quick transitions between Harrison’s apartment, the front seat of a taxi and the bar. At his apartment, Harrison talks with his poster of Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver and watches the Oscars, hoping that he might someday make his mother proud by being there. Ellis performs a sequence of hilarious, remarkably well-done impressions of famous actors.
The cab is a place for both writing and work, where a wide assortment of characters pass in and out of Harrison’s life. By far the most outlandish and engaging character is a Rastafarian, performed perfectly by Ellis. The cab also takes Harrison to different places in the city, most prominently the downtown core, full of soul-sucking depravities, and to the countryside where Harrison conjures his American dreams.
The Hack interlaces three different types of monologues. There is Harrison situated in the world and dealing with people individually, which shows both his kindness and impatience.
Accompanying this is Harrison’s inner monologue, which shifts from raunchy humour to dark poetry
rife with morbid fatalism. Ellis pulls off the poetry, though it doesn’t seem as much his style as the crude and clever jokes. The third type of monologue includes the other characters that inhabit Harrison’s world—all 30 of them. Ellis pulls off the amazing feat of depicting all the different people in the play, from Jack Nicholson to Harrison’s drunk father. Ellis transitions seamlessly through the roles as if he has lived every one of them, interacting with himself as if he had a split personality.
Unfortunately, the play’s visuals are somewhat lacklustre. The props weren’t tailored to the set, and the lights—while not detracting from the production—did not enhance it either. However, it’s a estament to the power of the script and Ellis’ performance that the show doesn’t need to engage the audience with technical elements. Though much of the music is fitting, the ethereal trip-hop of Portishead seems ill-matched with a scene involving cocaine. Still, aside from small technical glitches, The Hack is a triumph of gonzo theatre. After Ellis finished his performance, he
came out to discuss the play. He said he hoped that everyone who came would pound back a couple of beers before the show to get into the play’s raunchiness as much as possible. However, I’d suggest abstaining, if only for one night—The Hack is intoxicating enough on its own.
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