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by Richard Sanger, directed by Ross Manson

Volcano, Artword Theatre, Toronto

January 11-19, 2003

Richard Sanger's "Two Words for Snow," first seen at Calgary's 1999 PlayRites Festival, finally has its Toronto premiere.  Most will wonder why it took so long.  It is a superb piece of writing and Volcano, under Ross Manson's taut direction, gives it a thrilling production.  With riveting performances in key roles, "Two Words' becomes the first must-see show of the new year.

In the "Eskimo Room" of a New York museum in 1935, Matthew Henson, an Inuktitut-speaking African-American who accompanied Commander Robert Peary on each of his expeditions to the North Pole, sits surrounded by memories and artifacts of the journeys.  Confronted by Peary's son for contradicting the official version of Peary's triumph, Henson tells him the real story.  Bonnie Beecher's magical lighting transforms Teresa Przybylski's translucent, all-white set into an Arctic outpost and back.  Time shifts among 1935, 1909 and 1910, and we see how much fiction makes up the "facts" of history.  Who would believe then a black man first "conquered" the North Pole, if indeed it was conquered?

Through curator Franz Boas and Henson's Inuit lover, Sanger questions distinctions between "primitive" and "civilized," underscoring the tribalism of all societies.  Even as Sanger tells this compelling tale, he ponders the insignificance of such "conquests" that time and nature ultimately erase.

Nigel Shawn Williams anchors the production with a magnificent, moving performance.  He uncannily metamorphoses into three distinct Hensons masterfully exploring the differing conflicts in each between pride and loyalty.  David Fox is both the frighteningly unheroic Peary of 1909 and self-mythologizing "hero" of 1910.  There may be only two words for snow in Inuktitut.  The one word for this show is "extraordinary."

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2003-01-16.

Photo: Tom Barnett, David Fox and Nigel Shawn Williams. ©2003 John Lauener.