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April 22, 2005
Performance art at its best
Superb acting makes Trying and Unless two productions
worth seeing.
BAILA LAZARUS
It's not often you get a chance to see two stellar performances
in concurrent plays; but the fact that the plays themselves are
so well-written gives more reason to take advantage of the opportunity.
Don't worry that each of the plays is titled by a one-word sentence
fragment, the meanings become clear in the end.
Directed by Brian Richmond, Trying
takes place over the final year in the life of Francis Biddle (Alan
Scarfe), who was attorney general under Franklin Roosevelt, as well
as a judge at the Nuremberg trials. The play is based on the experiences
of the play's writer, Joanna Glass, who actually spent a year as
Biddle's personal secretary in 1967. To say that Scarfe mastered
the part of Biddle would be an understatement. His acting was so
believable, everything down to the most minute hand gestures seemed
to have come from an innate understanding of the character.
Set in a gorgeously constructed library/office, Trying brings
together Biddle and new secretary Sarah Schorr (Thea Gill). Hailing
from the Prairies and calling herself a "bugger for work,"
Schorr places her Canadian work ethic in the path of Biddle's overbearing,
paternal and condescending manner. A crotchety Scrooge in the last
year of his life, Biddle is dealing with the pain of arthritis,
along with the pain of realizing that whatever he has contributed
to the world thus far is all that will remain. In his final year,
it becomes more important to him to correct grammatical mistakes
in people's correspondence than to actually respond to the letters
themselves.
The writing is full of wit and sensitivity but, through the humor,
manages to convey the frustration of losing one's faculties, physical
freedom and dignity.
"My mind excuses itself without my permission," Biddle
states. "It saunters off and thumbs its nose at me."
The show takes its name from the fact that both Schorr and Biddle
each try on different occasions to make the relationship work.
"We can't help but find each other extremely trying,"
Biddle says to Schorr near the beginning, harping on the difference
in age (82 and 25) and backgrounds between the two. Even talking
becomes trying for Biddle. As Biddle rightly points out,
any conversation he may have with Schorr, he's had with someone
else in another decade.
One of the challenges Schorr must put up with is Biddle's increasing
forgetfulness, his miserly attitude toward the help, such as the
cook, Monique ("We don't call Monique 'Monique'; we call her
'cook,' " Biddle snaps at Schorr one day), his constant repetition
of instructions and his refusal to answer correspondence. In one
hilarious and very revealing line, Biddle says, "I resent the
umbrage that anything is expected of me in my final year."
But Schorr's resolve stands in the face of almost everything, until
a particularly hurtful remark by Biddle about Schorr's father sends
her running from the office. Biddle implores her to return, recognizing
that she is the only one he has ever worked with who has the fortitude
to stand up to him. Schorr stays and, as the year moves on, changes
from the naïve, well-meaning secretary and errand-girl to Biddle's
personal assistant, nurse, companion and even source of solace.
There are a couple of weakness in Trying: the tired use of
contemporary film clips and audio ("I have a dream...";
"Ask not what your country..."; etc.) and the incongruity
of acting calibre between Scarfe and Gill. While Gill seems to be
the crotchety curmudgeon, it is clear Scarfe is acting the
part of Schorr. Her physical manner is stiff and her elongated vowels
and over-aspirated "Yes, sir" seem to have been an oversight
in the direction. Though this disappears slightly by the end of
the play, indicating her growing comfort working with Biddle, it
seems to be more of an acting trick than a believable transition.
Trying plays at the Playhouse Theatre until April 30. Call
604-873-3311 for ticket information.
While Scarfe, as Biddle, is examining
his life in Trying, Nicola Cavendish is Reta Winters, an
author examining her own life in Unless, adapted from the
book of the same name by Carol Shields.
With brilliance and hilarity right from the top, Unless opens
as Winters, a writer in her 40s, is working on the draft of a second
novel. She talks directly to the audience, sometimes describing
a scene from her past (as it is re-enacted on the stage), sometimes
directly, in monologue form, with just a spotlight. She tells us
of her life with her husband and three daughters, her three also-40-something
friends, with whom she gets together for coffee, and her struggle
with the characters in her novel. But most of all, she talks about
Norah, her 19-year-old daughter who has relinquished any position
in life to sit on the corner of Bloor and Bathurst in Toronto with
a sign that says, "Goodness."
It is said that losing a child is the hardest burden to bear. Winters,
at least, has the slight hope of regaining her daughter, but she
is at her wit's end trying to figure out why her daughter gave up
on life and how she can get her back.
In reality, very little compelling happens in the play. A series
of vignettes portrays slices of Winters' life and the interactions
between various relatives and the daughter-turned-street-person
are necessary but somewhat predictable. But the joy of Unless
is Cavendish as the storyteller – the storyteller of her own
life and the storyteller of her novel. Her ability to just stand,
face the audience and unburden herself and have us want to listen
is masterful.
Through Winters, the audience also gets a glimpse into Shields'
own life as a writer, learning how a writer develops characters,
weaving, consciously or unconsciously, the patterns of their own
lives into their novels; how words like "notwithstanding,"
'hardly," 'whatever," "instead" and "unless"
form the "chips of grammar" to keep a life together.
"Unless you get sick ... unless you are asked to tell your
story ..." Winters laments to the audience, "it can be
a trap door or a tunnel into the light."
Through her struggles to bring her daughter home and to write a
novel true to her own sense of identity, Winters' own self develops
and she faces down a self-centred, boorish editor who tries to diminish
the power of the female character in her book.
Adding to strength of the writing and the acting of Cavendish is
an exceptional use of multi-media, a revolving stage, moving sets,
scenes behind scenes and excellent work by supporting cast members,
especially Celine Stubel as daughter Norah, Allan Morgan as husband
Tom and Nicola Lipman as mother-in-law Lois.
Written by Carol Shields and Sara Cassidy and directed by Roy Surette,
Unless also stars Matthew MacFadzean, Tara Hughes, Elizabeth
Saunders and Michael Spencer-Davis.
Unless runs until May 1 at the Stanley Theatre. Call 604-687-1644
for ticket information.
Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, photographer and
illustrator living in Vancouver.
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