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by Sonja Mills, directed by Kelly Thornton

Nightwood Theatre, Tarragon Theatre Extra Space, Toronto

November 19-December 15, 2002

Kate Hennig gives one of the finest female performances seen in any play in Toronto this year.  She plays Agnete Ottosen, a poet and leader of the Resistance in Nazi-occupied Denmark who was responsible for helping hundreds of Jews escape to neutral Sweden.  Ottosen was detained and sent to the work camp at Ravensbruck, where she was tortured and subjected to gynecological "experiments".  She survived, forever altered by the experience, and chose to have a child without marrying.  This caused a second ordeal--her refusal to name the father led the state to take her son from her.

Hennig fearlessly captures the wide range of emotions Ottosen experiences, moving from spirited self-reliance to agony and increasingly dark layers of depression and paranoia.  The depth and intensity of Hennig's characterization are overwhelming.

More's the pity Mills has placed such a compelling story within such a pedestrian frame.  Friends who have gathered for an annual Christmas toast since before wartime meet in 1962 for their first toast since Ottosen's death.  Their celebration is intercut with flashbacks of Ottosen's life.  Unfortunately, more time is spent in conjuring up local colour and period detail than in developing any of these characters.  Christine Brubaker as Ottosen's friend Bente and Erika Hennebury in multiple roles make the strongest impression.  The text and Kelly Thornton's direction should leave prosaic naturalism behind to aim for greater theatrical poetry.  The minutiae of what sort of freezers or cars Ottosen's friends own and what food they like dilute the story and dampen its effect.

In a play about a poet we should hear more than only three of Ottosen's bleak, disturbing poems.  One hopes that Mills, Ottosen's great-niece, will follow up the play with translations of Ottosen's poems and diaries to let us know more about this remarkable woman.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Kate Hennig as Agnete Ottosen. ©2002 Guntar Kravis.