Thursday 19 May 2016

Theatre Ontario Festival 2016 # 1: Living Life on the Edge of the Curve

It's that time of year again, as the "best of the best" in Ontario community theatre assemble in North Bay to present their work in a 5-day event which is part festival, part symposium, part seminar, part competition, part family reunion, and all exciting.

Today's review takes in the first of four entries.

Curved
Written by Kristin Shepherd
Directed by Maureen Cassidy
Presented by the Gateway Theatre Guild
Representing QUONTA Drama Region (Northeastern Ontario)


There's always a special anticipation to seeing an original work presented in a festival.  For me, this was enhanced by hearing advance buzz about Canadian playwright Kristin Shepherd's new piece, Curved.  The comments from people who saw the show previously really intrigued me, because they ranged right across the gamut from the most extreme of positives to the most extreme of negatives.  Not only that, but most of the comments I heard addressed the script rather than the performance -- a sure sign of a provocative piece of writing.

What I did not do was to read the extensive notes about the show given in the programme.  I have always felt that any work in the performing arts (with very rare exceptions), in order to be a good and strong piece, has to explain itself clearly to the audience on its own terms without external verbal supports.  I look forward to reading those notes after I finish writing this article.

The set designed by Arndt von Holtzendorff presented an unusual collection of visual elements which kept suggesting new and different images in my mind throughout the preshow period.  A multi-tiered riser covered most of the stage.  Roughly semi-circular, its edges moved in a series of gently scalloped curves around the space.  The base colour of beige was highlighted with a series of decorations in magenta which hinted at swooping draperies of cloth.  Alternately, the whole colour scheme could have represented a multi-tiered cake.  A series of six poles across the back carried upright oval shapes which suggested egg beaters or alternately wind turbines.  Gentle ramps, painted in magenta, led up to the lowest tier, and a larger ramp crossed the back stage, sloping up to the highest level at centre stage and back down again.  The whole assemblage also looked to me uncannily like an old-time carnival ride.

(I was somewhat amused when adjudicator Mimi Mekler explained after the show her take that the colours represented flesh and blood and the upright ovals represented "volvos" in the word used by character Wavy -- that is, "vulvas".  Of course, Mekler had the distinct advantage of having thoroughly read and analyzed the script in advance as part of her preparation.  I try to avoid advance familiarity with the show whenever I can, as a way of putting myself into the position of "audience" as much as possible).

Across the front of the stage, three stand microphones clearly prepared us for something resembling stand-up comedy -- or perhaps a lecture.

A gentle background pre-show soundscape was difficult to hear over the buzz of conversation in the theatre, but could have been rain falling or the sound of sticks rattling.

The show opened with a series of long monologues.  The actors all did a good job of simply "being" in the moment.  In this case, it meant that each one was talking to us, giving disconnected bits of information, reaction, emotion, and the like, which in time would go to help us build up a total mental picture of the whole person.  What they were doing was solid and whole and convincing.  The one difficulty I had was with Del (Tanya Webb) whose first appearances consisted of walking across the stage behind the others, tossing out a single tart comment directed at one or more of them, and then walking off.  In that opening sequence she began by acting as a kind of Greek chorus, while her relationship and role in the lives of the others was still hidden from us.  For me, this was a source of confusion and unclearness: who was this woman, and how did she relate to the others?

The key and memorable moment came when Del was herself addressing the audience and -- with a wholly appropriate blend of irony and menace -- asked, "You want plot?"  With a snap, the stand-up black comedy of the opening sequence was over and we were plunged into the world of the play.

In a play which is so much an ensemble piece, it would be invidious to single out one performer or another as the "lead".  All played a critical part.  In a very real sense, the five women related by ties of blood or love or concern are like five different blends of characteristics which might go together to make an ideal or "perfect" person -- a being which, of course, has no existence in our reality.  Thus, you have the sensuousness and love of Granny Wave, the business head of Estelle, the playful energy and positive vibe of Wavy, the dark-shadowed self-reflection and self-loathing of Del, and the devil-may-care Carpe diem of Chloe.

Throughout the piece, these vivid and believable characters gave us a whole series of "aha" moments in which we clearly recognized ourselves, or others known to us.  For me the mainspring of the entire piece became the relationship between Granny Wave and her eleven-year-old granddaughter Wavy.

Wavy herself (played by Patsy McVicars) was the source of much of the comedy because of the overflowing energy which she brought to her role -- exemplified by her energetic pushing of her tricycle up and down ramps and around the stage.  That energy reached its highest peak -- carefully prepared -- in the final scenes.  McVicars gave a great sense of joy in life to this precocious child-woman, all knowledge but little experience.

At the other end of the life cycle stood Granny Wave (June Keevil), handing on her accumulated wisdom of a lifetime  to her granddaughter as a gift of love.  The emotional bond between them was palpable in all their scenes together in Act 1, a beautiful stage relationship.  In Act 2, after her stroke, Keevil's performance took on an even more remarkable realism, mingling love, terror, anger, and resignation in equal measures.

Outside their charmed circle stood the middle woman of the three, Wavy's mother and Granny Wave's daughter -- Del.  Abrupt, sarcastic, bitter, filled with self-hate and drugs, Del definitely sucked up the shadow side of both her mother and her daughter.

As Chloe, who assists both Del and Wavy, Johanna McPherson walked with an up-yours posture and strut that telegraphed her stance on life as strongly as her stance on the stage.  Here was another character with truthful emotions leaking out at unexpected moments, and all the more moving for that.

Joanne Bernier was magnificent as Estelle, the flower shop owner who was Granny Wave's lover long ago.  Brusque, organized, all business, she still let her emotions peer out through the cracks (no more than cracks) in her armour.  Her scenes in her flower shop with Wavy were among the most telling of the entire piece, her love and regret and fear and loathing all conspiring to drive her forward while still pulling her back.

Stephanie Haines in the small role of the nurse at the Des Peres home, gave us a great deal of insight into her in a small period of time on stage.

The play rose to a moving, terrible, loving climax as Wavy at last got to see her beloved Granny Wave again.  At first shocked, crying out, "No!  That isn't my Granny!," she then begins to listen more carefully to the remains of that dear voice.  At last she does what has to be done to allow Granny to pass away.  It sounds tragic when put like that, but the feeling I was left with was quite the opposite.  It was living, enhancing, fulfillment.  Even the (apparent) death of Del at the same moment was an equally important part of what needed to happen.

I want to return, in conclusion, to my opening comments about an original script and about programme notes.  There are several respects in which I felt that Shepherd's script, beautiful and powerful as it is, creates undue difficulties for the audience.

The first act in particular keeps the audience scrambling in the dark for a long time, before the relationships among the characters begin to truly appear.  A little mystery in these matters is a good thing, but too much can become merely annoying.  Somebody once said that the ideal course is to stay half-a-step to one step ahead of your audience -- but no more than that.  I felt that for the first half-hour or so the play was several metres too far out in front of us.

The fragmentary way in which we are introduced to the characters and their lives is a valid choice from the author.  The one aspect which took a long time to come clear for me was the relationship between Wavy and Granny Wave.  Without having read the programme notes, I didn't realize that an adult performer was playing an 11-year-old child.  Instead, I believed for quite a while that Wavy was in fact an adult woman with developmental difficulties and that Granny Wave was an imaginary figure in her mind -- largely because, in her story-telling, Granny asks for and/or accepts correction on details from Wavy.

Those long stand-up monologues.  Unconventional, of course, and none the worse for that.  However, I felt that the opening monologue sequences were simply too long.  Before those monologues end, and not knowing what is to come or who any of these people are, it begins to seem more like a public lecture or recitation than an actual play.  The key difference: a lecture or recitation neither invites nor demands audience involvement in what is happening.  Theatre does.  Those lengthy monologues began to seem like Brechtian distancing pushed to the nth degree and beyond.  I know that I was in danger of checking out of the play, and I suspect that some of the negative comments I heard came from people who in fact had checked out because of the length of this portion of the show.

Note that all of these difficulties were in the front end of the work, in what is conventionally called the "exposition".  Once the stories really began to grow and evolve in front of our eyes, the piece remained totally engrossing and grew in emotional and dramatic power.

Gateway Theatre Guild and director Maureen Cassidy have certainly served us well by bringing such an unconventional, vivid, involving play into the Festival.

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