Reviews 2003
Reviews 2003
✭✭✩✩✩
by Florence Gibson, directed by Ken Gass
Factory Theatre, Factory Theatre Mainspace, Toronto
April 11-May 11, 2003
Florence Gibson's follow-up to her successful Belle (2001) is a disappointment. The themes are the same--female identity, racism and male chauvinism--only this time the focus is gypsies (Roma) in 1990s Romania instead of African-Americans in the postbellum North. Where Belle had a strong story, Home is My Road is melodramatic and barely credible.
Esme (Patricia Fagan) has left her adoptive mother (Brenda Robins) to go to Romania to find her birth mother who is only a name to her on an unintelligible document. Only by finding her "real" mother will Esme supposedly know who she really is. After Stefan (Brandon McGibbon), a young gypsy, robs her, he convinces Esme he can take her to her mother. Once the known liar claims Esme's mother is a gypsy, next thing you know the spoiled well-off tourist is in gypsy gear learning how to wash clothes the gypsy way and tearing up her Canadian passport because now, despite being raised in Canada from infancy, she is "gypsy".
Esme's story is intercut with those of a Canadian woman Grace (also Brenda Robins) who is trying to adopt a healthy baby in Romania and of Stefan's sister Trinquet (Arsinée Khanjian), under pressure from an amorous adoption officer (Tony Nappo).
Neither Fagan nor director Ken Gass can make us believe in the moral authority Gibson wants the ludicrously naïve Esme to have. Robins, however, plumbs new emotional depths to give superb, resonant performances in both her roles. Using his lines of accented broken English, McGibbon builds up a fascinating character, wily and attractive but consumed with self-hatred. Khanjian and Nappo do their best to animate their cardboard figures, while Sean Dixon plays Stefan's retarded brother as if he belonged to the Addams family. Sadly, the poetic language that made Belle remarkable is replaced with mere punning.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2003-04-24.
Photo: Patricia Fagan and Brandon McGibbon. ©2003 Factory Theatre.
2003-04-24
Home is My Road