A Mystery Play

For A Mystery Play, Dawood reprises his interest in Buster Keaton and Keaton’s connection to Harry Houdini via the Vaudeville Circuit of the 1920s , with both performers having performed at the Pantages Playhouse Theater in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Influenced by the historical significances of Winnipeg, A Mystery Play stages the new work between the Pantages Playhouse Theatre , the Manitoba Legislature and various outdoor locations around Manitoba. Drawing on research into the Masonic symbolism inherent in the Manitoba Legislature to parallel ideas of magic or visual sleight-of-hand encompassed in the work of both Keaton & Houdini, the work also maps out various other histories and narratives contained within Winnipeg and Canada, for example, introducing the figures of Mademoiselle Adgie , the burlesque dancer who performed with lions for the opening gala of the Pantages Playhouse and Canadian magician Dai Vernon: ‘The Man who fooled Houdini’.

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The film shows the lyrical interweaving of the plausible connections between the various characters and the city, intercut with the various stages of initiation incorporated into the architecture of the Legislative Building. It builds to a final climactic scene, restaging one of the key stunts from Keaton’s classic 1928 Steamboat Bill Jr ., where a house appears to spiral down to the ground in a storm, and Keaton steps through the door, thus bringing together the strands of architecture and screen magic.

| | Commissioned for Plug In ICA, Winnipeg, Canada