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written and directed by Edward Roy

Topological Theatre, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Toronto

April 6-16, 2006

The title character of The Golden Thug is the famous French writer, thief and homosexual, Jean Genet (1910-86), author of such works as The Maids (1949) and Our Lady of the Flowers (1944).  Edward Roy’s depressingly ill-conceived new play imagines Genet (William Webster) checking into the shabby hotel where he will die.  There while trying to finish a novel and recalling his own past, he becomes involved in the disputes of the bourgeois Dargenet family who run the place.

“The dying famous person’s life flashes before his eyes” is, of course, a cliché.  Having the actors who play the dull Dargenet family re-enact scenes from Genet’s life in the purple prose Roy gives them is too often unintentionally funny.  Besides this, two of the five actors--Andrew Hachey as the Dargenets’ son and Dan Watson as the son’s buddy--have very limited abilities.  Hachey can do “angry” and “bored” and Watson can play “low-key,” but that’s it.

William Webster, however, is wonderful as Genet, a man who has been in hell and can now see through every self-deception.  One wishes Roy had jettisoned the silly plot about the Dargenets since it ultimately demeans the great writer and had simply written a one-man show about Genet for Webster.        

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2006-04-13.

Photo: Andrew Hachey and William Webster. ©2006 Paula Wilson.