Reviews 2006
Reviews 2006
✭✭✩✩✩
by Morris Panych, directed by Jim Millan
Crow’s Theatre/National Arts Centre,
Tarragon Theatre Extra Space, Toronto
March 23-April 9, 2006
Five years after its premiere, Morris Panych’s comedy Earshot returns to the Tarragon Extra Space in a touring production staged by Jim Millan, who recreates the author’s original direction. The play is simply an overextended joke, an 85-minute-long tirade ending in an unexpected twist, a replay really of Panych’s 1995 comedy Vigil without the mute second person.
Randy Hughson returns as Doyle, an unemployed loner who suffers from an abnormally keen sense of hearing. He can hear a pin not merely drop but fall through the air. He complains unceasingly about the noise his neighbours make--the paraplegic writer above him, the amateur handyman below him, the aged widow to his left still calling for her dead husband. Only Valerie to the right is spared. He revels in her every sound and plans drastic means to make his love known to her.
A second viewing highlights the play’s irresolvable paradox. If Doyle can’t stand the sound of his own chewing, how he can stand the sound of his speaking let alone indulge in so much shouting and screaming? In 2001 Hughson gave a virtuoso performance as a soul in torment. Now his Doyle is all mannerisms calculated to milk laughter. If this tiresome rant once had a point, it now is lost.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2006-03-30.
Photo: Set for Earshot. ©Ken MacDonald.
2006-03-30
Earshot