No One’s Special at the Hot Dog Cart - Review of New Play at Theatre Passe Muraill

No One’s Special At The Hot Dog Cart is an ambitious one-actor play written and performed by Charlie Petch. A big hot dog cart is on stage and we are told it does business at Yonge and Dundas and at Gerard and Church, two well-known corners in Toronto.
Petch receives a laudable description in the program listing a long catalogue of achievements and is also described as “a disabled/queer/transmasculine multidisciplinary artist who resides in Tkaronto/Toronto.” He is a “poet, playwright, librettist, musician, lighting designer, and host” and has won numerous awards and distinctions all of which are praiseworthy. My concern is the comment that they/he is disabled and I am not sure what if any effect it had on the performance of No One’s Special.
The title of the play may lead one to expect a play about interesting, perhaps humorous and dramatic events while selling hot dogs but there is much, much more than that in a play that lasts about an hour.
In addition to selling hot dogs, Charlie (they/he) becomes an emergency responder, a social worker able to help a troubled, homeless person with his family problems and encounters with others in horrible situations by using de-escalation techniques.
Charlie describes his work as a 911 responder and then as a worker in a hospital emergency room and a bed allocator in a hospital. That is a long way from the hot dog cart and the play covers a much wider canvas than my summary suggests.
Petch performs several poems and we hear a couple of songs and have fleeting attempts at psychological depths. Unfortunately, it does not work.
Much of the time Petch speaks in an almost monotonous voice that expresses a limited emotional range. Raising your voice’s volume is not the same as being expressive. The play tries to cover far too much ground in any event and the chances of reaching all the issues are slim. Speaking over a cacophony of voices does not help. Humour is almost non-existent and maybe we have the right to expect some amusing events at the hot dog stand or in Charlie’s other endeavors.
I do not know under what disability Petch is working and I speak of my perceived shortcomings of the play and the performance with trepidation. But my reaction was that of disappointment.
No One’s Special At The Hot Dog Cart by Charlie Petch, a Theatre Passe Muraille and Erroneous Theatre coproduction, continues March 23, 2024, at Theatre Passe Muraille, 16 Ryerson Avenue, Toronto, Ontario.
www.passemuraille.on.ca

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