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written and directed by Judith Thompson

Tarragon Theatre, Tarragon Theatre Mainspace, Toronto

January 6-February 8, 2004

Judith Thompson’s latest play takes the story of a disturbed man stalking his ex-wife and wants to make it into parable about fate and death.  Unfortunately, in Thompson’s hands the basic story is too generalized to be realistic and not coherent enough to be symbolic. 

Dodge (Tom McCamus) re-enters the life of the former wife he abused, junior kindergarten teacher Jerry Joy Lee (Randi Helmers).  He had told her he would kill her in seven years and the time has come, further aggravated by his insane jealousy of her relationship with the Aziz (Maurice Dean Wint), the father of one her students.  Logically, Jerry should call the police or a women’s shelter, but as her wisecracking friend Minkle (Chick Reid) tells her, “Once they’ve found you, they’ve got you.”  This is poor advice to disseminate in a play, but that’s the only way Thompson can make her death-as-stalker symbolism work.  Therefore, we see Jerry complain to Minkle, focus on Aziz and seek out her birth mother (Nancy Palk) but do nothing about Dodge’s increasingly frightening harassment until, through her unexplained fatalism or foolishness, it is too late.

Under Thompson’s heavy-handed direction, Helmers captures Jerry as Pollyanna well enough but can’t fully communicate her past and present fears.  McCamus is brooding and intense as a man at war with himself.  Reid, Palk and Wint do well at giving life to their sketched-in characters.   Thompson strains for poetic effect, but even seasoned Thompson actress Palk can’t make her childbirth-as-Krakatoa speech sound less than ludicrous.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2004-01-22.

Photo: Maurice Dean Wint and Randi Helmers. ©2004 Tarragon Theatre.