Catherine Kidd in exclusive King’s Theatre show

By Lawrence Powell

Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

Critics try to pigeon-hole writers, poets and performers – put them in a perspective they can understand. Stuff them into a mold of their own often-limited experience. That’s a tough proposition with Catherine Kidd, the Port George poet/actor/philosopher that the Montreal Gazette described as “Our city’s newest superstar…a knockout…this Kidd is pure gold.” Toronto’s Broken Pencil said she is “clearly one of Canada’s most talented wordsmiths.”

On October 2 at King’s Theatre in Annapolis Royal, an anticipated full house will have the chance to make up their own minds when the diminutive Kidd takes to the stage to (as The Scotsman, Edenburgh describes) “reflect on life, love, and the lessons animals teach us…”

The Scotsman also described Kidd as “slight but dominating, this ‘goddess of beats’ transfixes with her adult blend of Dr. Suess and Aesop’s Fables.”

Kidd may be tiny, but she takes up all the space on stage, and King’s Theatre manager Geoff Keymer, who has seen Kidd perform, described her as mesmerizing. “She had the audience in the palm of her hand.”

Kidd takes her inspiration from a variety of sources, but zoology textbooks seem to be the backbone of her ‘beat’ poems that might look at life from the perspective of some of the ‘lower’ organisms while prodding and poking at the human tendency to fit them into human perspectives.

Sea Peach helps shed the baggage surrounding relationships until you get to the pure essence of love – giving and receiving. Bipolar Bear trashes psychology and sees life from without. Human Fish puts homosapiens into perspective on the evolutionary chain and decries the ‘dominion over all’ right man has assumed.

Kidd deals with so many things at once that it’s wise to pay close attention to this philosophical juggling act. The beat of her poetry is a thread throughout – the heart pumping to keep the poem going. Rhyme accentuates with the profound or the pathetic, the funny or the sad, all without judging. You draw your own conclusions.

And don’t think Kidd’s performance is café style poetry. Kidd started out in theatre, migrated to philosophy and religious studies, and parked herself in English as well. Picture Robin Williams meets Tom Waits meets Allen Ginsberg and you start to get the idea. It’s not difficult to see Kidd on Neal Cassady’s bus.

But if Kidd is beat, she’s the evolution of beat with music, multimedia, that leaves no holes in her performance.

Kidd has lived and worked in Montreal for many years, and performs around the world – from Europe, Africa, and Asia to Canada and the United States. She recently moved to Port George. The October performance will be her first full show in Nova Scotia.

Tickets are $15 (Students $5). Contact 532-7704 or go to www.kingstheatre.ca.

Kidd’s October 2, 8 p.m. performance is produced by homeagainhomeagain productions that recently brought Vancouver’s Sean Watson to King’s Theatre for a sold-out one-man show of Swimming to Cambodia.

For information on Catherine Kidd, go to www.catkidd.com or myspace.com/catherinekidd.