Reviews 2007
Reviews 2007
✭✭✭✭✭
by Wadji Mouawad, directed by Richard Rose
Tarragon Theatre/NAC, Tarragon Theatre Mainstage, Toronto
February 27-March 31, 2007
Scorched, now having its English-language premiere, is a hugely impressive play from 2003 by Lebanese-Canadian Wajdi Mouawad. The work explores the horrors of modern civil war in an epic mode similar in structure and theme to Shakespeare’s late romances. Staged with striking visual style by director Richard Rose and with pitch-perfect performances from the entire nine-member cast, this show is not to be missed.
A pairs of twins is assigned a disturbing task in the will of their mother Nawal. Janine (Sophie Goulet) is to seek out the father they had been told was dead and Simon (Sergio Di Zio) is find the older brother they never knew existed. This fairy-tale-like introduction leads Janine, who accepts the challenge, to uncover the sequence of atrocities her mother lived through in an unnamed Middle Eastern country and had hidden from her children. Meanwhile, Mouawad parallels Janine’s search with the story of Nawal’s quest to find the son stolen from her at birth.
The whole ensemble, including the three women (Janick Hébert, Kelli Fox, Nicola Lipman) who play Nawal at different ages, Alon Nashman as a humorously earnest lawyer and David Fox in a whole gallery of roles, should be showered with praise. Some scenes as when a sniper picks off victims to a song by Cheap Trick, you will never forget. Scorched resonates with meaning and mystery long after performance is over.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2007-03-08.
Photo: Janick Hébert, Kelli Fox and Nicola Lipman. ©Cylla von Tiedemann.
2007-03-08
Scorched