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by Rafe Macpherson, directed by Vinetta Strombergs

Silly Prat Productions, George Ignatieff Theatre, Toronto

April 30-June 2, 2002

"Wonderful True Revelation"

“The Terrible False Deception” by Rafe Macpherson is the kind of gem one hopes to discover along the dusty road of the Toronto Fringe Festival.  It is simply one of the cleverest, funniest Canadian plays I’ve ever seen.  Silly Prat Productions in association with the Studio Lab Theatre Foundation give it a stunningly fine production.

During the show I thought this  an exciting new voice in Canadian drama and a play that is sure to become a classic.  When I turned to the programme I learned, much to my surprise, that  the play is not new at all.  Its only previous professional production was its premiere by Buddies in Bad Times at the Rhubarb Festival in 1988.  It sank into obscurity until it was published in May this year by Playwrights Press in the anthology “Seven Short Plays for Theatre Ontario--kudos to editors  Marian Doucette and Skip Shand.

It is an amazing play that packs more ideas and laughs into 40 minutes than are often found in plays three times the length.  The brilliant conceit is that all four 10-minute acts have exactly the same blocking including how each of the four actors delivers his/her lines and their gestures and facial expressions.  The only thing that changes from act to act is the content, level of diction and level of metatheatricality.  Indeed, the entire play is an experiment examining the question of what theatre is with many nods to Pirandello, Brecht and Stoppard. 

In Act 1 the actors in 19th-century costume narrate in first person what they think about their part, the other actors, the stage business they have to do, their problems with the director, as if, instead of saying their lines they are giving a running commentary on them.  In Act 2 the invisible fourth wall has gone up and we are in a riotous parody of Chekhov in a terribly stilted translation.  In Act 3 we are in what seems to be a teenager’s awkward attempt to write a  play in the style of both Tennessee Williams and Michel Tremblay.  The actors are still in their period outfits on the pretext that they are going to a fancy-dress ball.  This is the least successful part of the show (a fact mentioned in Act 4) probably because the author is aiming at too many targets.  In Act 4 the author is back on form this time with the actors interacting with each other immediately after a rehearsal of a four-act play just like the one we have been watching.  The mirror is held up to a mirror.  Let me repeat that the only thing that changes from act to act is the words the actors speak.  You have to see it to believe it.

All of the actors are excellent: Patricia Yeatman as Woman 1, the too-old-for-it ingenue; Angela Fusco, Woman 2, a billowy character actor; Kyle McDonald, Man 1, the young, vapid male lead; and Wally Michaels, an elderly character actor with a drinking problem.  They all are spot-on which is necessary since the play demands absolute precision to create its effect.  Director Vinetta Strombergs has brought this off with great skill.  She has accurately predicted exactly where the laughs will be and worked that time into the universal blocking pattern.  Designer E.K. Ayotte chose the highly operatic 19-century costumes (“La traviata”, perhaps?) and, I assume, set up the clever lighting cues.            

This is a production that would do very well as a Canadian entry at the du Maurier World Stage festival.  According to the programme Macpherson is at work on two more one-acters to be played with “Deception”.   Meanwhile, don’t miss this show and hope it comes back after the Fringe so you can see it again.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Patricia Yeatman.