Reviews 2004
Reviews 2004
✭✭✭✩✩
by Sam Shepard, directed by Brendon Allen
Dog-Eared Productions, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Toronto
July 13-24, 2004
The first presentation by the new company, Dog-Eared Productions, is the Canadian premiere of Sam Shepard’s The Late Henry Moss. While the original production in 2000 had a cast that included Sean Penn, Nick Nolte and Woody Harrelson, the present production features mostly recent theatre school graduates working on a low budget. More seasoned actors would likely have delved more deeply into the text and presented it more subtly. Yet, Shepard fans will not want to miss his latest summation of his favourite themes.
Older brother Earl Moss (Christian McKenna) and younger brother Ray (Jonah Allison) have convened in the tumbledown New Mexico shack of their hated father Henry (Graeme Stewart), who still lies dead in his bed. The paranoid Ray is suspicious about Henry’s death and quizzes Earl, Henry’s neighbour Esteban (Shaun Shetty) and the taxi driver (Jason O’Brien), who took him on his last ride. Earl’s and the driver’s narratives are enacted as flashbacks that reveal not only how Henry died but also Henry’s own view of his metaphorical death many years earlier.
Shepard revisits familiar territory—the desert setting, warring brothers literally at each other’s throats, violence as the basic relation between men and women, an absent father whose influence has blighted his children. As usual Shepard’s play is also a parable about the U.S. More clearly than elsewhere he links imperialism to machismo and abuse of women and shows new generations inheriting a fear that leads only to further aggression.
Brendon Allen has tautly directed the piece but misses the grim humour of brothers’ absurd battles. McKenna and Stewart give raw, emotional performances but often mistakes shouting for emoting. Allison appears more dim than brooding and without a clear grip on his deeply conflicted character. The most comic, richly imagined performance comes from O’Brien as an ordinary guy who has stumbled into a brutal, nihilistic world where his simple values no longer apply.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2004-07-15.
Photo: Jason O’Brien. ©2008.
2004-07-15
The Late Henry Moss