Made in USA | Tell Me Love Is Real

What’s the connection between Whitney Houston, Paul Simon, Buddy Holly, Bruce Lee, Amelia Earhart, Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Dylan, an overweight woman in her ninth month, Xanax, and love? There can only be one answer: Zachary Oberzan is here! His elegantly interlocking thoughts on the question “Why, in the end, are we here?” acquire flesh and blood in an incredibly tender production packed with humour, songs, humanity and the unexpected. The result is somewhere between documentary, stand-up and performance.

What is life and why must we live it like protagonists in a mystery novel we don’t understand? Oberzan, in the 39 years since his birth, and after an unfortunate overdose of Xanax almost did for him, has grasped just the one thing: that the only thing that can keep us in this life is love. The struggle between love and death is repeated in the endless game of living as Oberzan hangs on for dear life to his heroes, whether they be superheroes or just people who understand.

Whitney Houston, who died of an overdose (but actually of loneliness), the songs that speak of love, a mother’s love for her child before she’s even given birth to it, reality, fiction and the here and now of the audience are all woven into a wonderful fabric by Zachary Oberzan, who steers a course between the kitsch and the magnificent and shares with us his personal version of the deepest and most essential of all questions: is love real? A performance to be enjoyed in all its glory by laughing, crying and singing along together.