WODL Festival 2019 # 2: Love Lost and Found

The Western Ontario Drama League (WODL) Festival is an annual 

celebration of community theatre in South-western Ontario.  

This year's Festival is co-hosted by the Guelph Little Theatre

and the Elmira Theatre Company.

The adjudicator for the Festival is Maja Ardal.

STRANGERS AMONG US

by Aaron Bushkowsky

Directed by Maureen Dwyer

Presented by Theatre Burlington

"Sometimes we need to make painful things beautiful to be able to look at them."

-- James Kudelka                                       

(hope my memory quoted it accurately)

Last night, Theatre Burlington staged an intense and moving performance of Strangers Among Us which did indeed make painful things beautiful to the eye and ear.

Aaron Bushkowsky's script takes us on a journey through the lives of a group of people affected by Alzheimer's disease.  It seems unlikely and unlikable material for drama, but the resulting play strikes resonant chords in the heart and mind of anyone who has ever come face to face with this condition.

The stage set was simple in the extreme: three wooden boxes of sitting height were placed in front of three hanging banners or sails.  A light-coloured floor cover worked well with the set pieces to keep the stage light and bright at all times (dark sets, floors, and curtains are fashionable in theatre but they do swallow an immense amount of light).  The boxes were moved around to different locations in different scenes, and supplemented by a few simple props that were carried in and out as needed.

At the heart of the story are two patients in a nursing care facility, Gabrielle and Michael.  The story opens with the two of them lost, as they've wandered off the property and into the city.  

Virginia McEwen portrayed the many shades of fear, concern, discomfort, and puzzlement experienced by Gabrielle, making great use of multiple vocal tones and facial expressions as well as understated body language.

As Michael, Vince Carlin presented a stronger physicality allied with a voice which was firmer and clearer, if less varied in texture.

The opening conversation strikes laughter with the unintended non sequiturs and misunderstandings between these two.  As the play unfolds, we watch as recognition leads slowly to friendship and familiarity and at last to love.  The subtleties of this process between these two actors were truly remarkable.

All the while, the threads linking them to the various members of their families are slowly being unravelled, strand by strand.

Kimberly Jonasson played Michael's daughter, Joan, as a type of person who has become familiar in the internet age.  Having read some websites, and gone to hear a few experts speak, she believes that she knows all she needs to know in order to care for her father at home.  Her crisp diction and forceful vocal tone emphasized that sense of conviction, although it was slightly undermined by moments of movement where stillness might have served better.  Her growing frustration as all her methodical planning is unable to reverse her father's illness was both intensely and movingly depicted.

Her husband, Art, by contrast is a person who instinctively senses how to interact with Alzheimer's patients on their turf, not his.  Peter Jonasson projected a nice sense of compassion paired with fun in this small but significant role.

Jerrold Karch portrayed Gabrielle's husband, Virgil, as the bluff, hearty travelling salesman, always with a ready line of talk.  His reluctance to interact with his wife was clearly shown long before he came out and said it in words.

Jennifer Barclay gave a powerful, multi-hued performance as their daughter Netty -- torn this way and that by the events over which she has no control.  Barclay's finest moments came in her final scenes, as Netty struggles to cope with the secrets in her parents' life and with her mother's complete loss of recognition.

Lynne Atkinson gave a nicely understated performance as Robyn, the nurse.  Her compassion for both patients and relatives was constantly there, but gently touched in rather than overtly portrayed.  At times her performance was almost too matter-of-fact.  In the early scenes, I at first missed the significance of her line about the familiarity of roast chicken, mashed potatoes, and canned mushy peas.  (The thoroughly up-to-date Joan, of course, wanted all organics.)  The reason for the line only dawned on me upon later reflection.  Overall, Atkinson did fine work in nailing down Robyn's place as the calm centre and buffer zone for all the violent emotional currents swirling around her.

Maureen Dwyer directed a flowing, involving reading of the script, handling characters and building stage pictures with a due sense of pacing and variety.  Only towards the end did I find my involvement beginning to wane.  

But I think that is more due to the nature of the script than anything else.  The beautiful manner in which the death scenes were staged was deeply moving, but certainly precluded anything of a major climax to the play.  In so far as there was a climax, it probably came with the scene of Virgil and Netty on the golf course, a scene which happened quite some time before the end of the show.

With this remarkable production, Theatre Burlington has definitely given us a night in the theatre that will be remembered for a long time by many of the audience who saw it.