The Collected Works Of Victor Bergman

The Collected Works Of Victor Bergman is one of the most unique performances I’ve seen. The net impact is a blurring of many influences, including memory, paranoia, ritualism, storytelling and dance.  To say the show is one thing misrepresents the pieces that make its whole so much the better: ...Victor Bergman is at its root an experience, and possibly an exorcism.

Aaron Orzech’s memories of the enigmatic Victor Bergman exert themselves with a haunting, psychotropic quality. He and Brian Lipson piece together and pull apart the recollections of Bergman, to question who he really was and what he is. Bergman, for his part, is something like the former Eastern Block’s Tyler Durden. The Collected Works... problematises who this man is, or maybe how his existence has impacted on Orzech.

The ideas feel dangerous and heavily engaging. The sense of character is fleeting and constantly shifts, so much so that it makes it difficult to determine who is saying what. The performances of Lipson and Orzech are so in sync, at times united, that trying to differentiate entities becomes a foolish endeavour. Dialogue veers between transcendental and incomprehensible, yet humour abounds; some moments simply force you to laugh. A delicate, evocative design backs up a mind-breaking text.