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by Nicky Guadagni, directed by Layne Coleman

Theatre Passe Muraille, Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace, Toronto

November 5-December 8, 2002

In 1983 Theatre Passe Muraille staged Hamlet starring Layne Coleman.  That project inspired Coleman's wife, Carole Corbeil, to write her second novel, In the Wings (1997), about an alternative theatre company, much like TPM, staging Hamlet.  The novel inspired friend and actor Nicky Guadagni to adapt it as a play.  And now, two years after Corbeil's untimely death, events come full circle as Coleman brings to life Corbeil's novel on the TPM stage.

The characters' lives mirror situations in Shakespeare's play.  Allan (an intense, brooding Jonathan Watton) is a bright young actor haunted by his father's remarriage and unexplained death years ago.  He falls in love with an older actor Alice (Brooke Johnson in a strong, focussed performance).  In a production of Hamlet, Allan is cast as Hamlet opposite Alice as Gertrude.  In a parallel plot Polonius-like theatre critic Pullwarden (Michael Healey in a masterfully comic turn) pursues singer-actress Louise (a soulful Deborah Hay), who as he discovers also sleeps with Allan.  Pullwarden's discovery leads Allan to a case of stage fright with unforeseen consequences.

The novel's intricate story, its complex characters, its theatrical setting, its implications involving truth, belief, role-playing and destiny, have the potential for an excellent play.  Guadagni's adaptation is not yet that play.  Though filled with powerful, often hilarious moments, it is too diffuse.  The three hours include too many episodes that may fill in background but do not move the central action forward.  One understands the reverential approach adapter and director take towards the novel, but to function as a play it needs trimming, the pace tightening, the story sharpening to create dramatic tension and flow.  That the present script holds our interest and its remarkable conclusion is so moving is due to the impassioned, committed performances of all eight members of the stellar cast.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: David Fox and Brooke Johnson (background) and Jonathan Watton and Sarah McDonald (foreground). ©2002 Theatre Passe Muraille.