Reviews 2004
Reviews 2004
✭✭✩✩✩
by Keven Kerr, directed by Chris Abraham
Theatre Passe Muraille, Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace, Toronto
April 28-May 16, 2004
A dying soldier (Greg Spottiswood) says he looked at a prostitute’s vagina, “And I could see to the other side.” Does he mean an anatomical anomaly? No, it’s Vancouver playwright Kevin Kerr being profound. He means the “Other Side”, i.e. “afterlife.” This is just one of numerous unintentional howlers in Unity (1918), certainly one of the more inept plays to win a Governor General’s Award.
Structured around the fictional diary entries of a young woman living in Unity, Saskatchewan, in 1918, Kerr tries to show how the war that everyone thought was “Over There” came home via the Spanish flu epidemic that swept the world killing up to 50 million people. It’s an overlong Canadian Heritage Minute with a disaster movie plot. Meet the nice people—watch them die off. Kerr, however, wants to say something weightier, to show there’s a link between death and sex and that no one can avoid either. Too bad it’s a cliché.
Tracy Michailidis does her utmost to make the diarist Beatrice more than the prissy Pollyanna she seems. Though stuck too far upstage Anne Anglin and Nancy Beatty are authentically funny as gossipy switchboard operators. As the teenaged undertaker Ngozi Paul gives a quietly intense performance. Claire Jenkins’ acting as Bea’s randy sister is at high school level.
Director Chris Abraham’s attempts to enhance the profundity by slowing the action and adding long pauses only reveal how thin the material is. Rick Hyslop’s nonstop soundtrack of incessantly ringing bells and gongs is itself enough to drive anyone batty.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2004-05-06.
Photo: Cover art for Unity (1918). ©2010 Talonbooks.
2004-05-06
Unity (1918)