Reviews 2008
Reviews 2008
✭✭✭✭✩
by Evelyne de la Chenelière, directed by Jennifer Tarver
Tarragon Theatre, Tarragon Theatre Extra Space, Toronto
November 5-December 7, 2008
Bashir Lazhar is a small play with a big heart. The heart belongs to the title character, an Algerian immigrant in Montreal in an outstanding performance from Raoul Bhaneja. Lazhar becomes the substitute teacher for a Grade 6 class still grieving for the sudden, inexplicable death of its teacher Mlle Lachance. Lazhar, too, is grieving for the loss of his homeland and his family and he learns as much from his students as he teaches them.
Through flashbacks Quebec playwright Evelyne de la Chenelière gives us glimpses of Lazhar’s former life in Algeria and his present life outside the classroom in Montreal. While these flashbacks are clearly distinguished by Rebecca Picherack’s imaginative changes of light and E.C. Woodley’s sound design, the playwright herself leaves too many aspects of Lazhar’s life in Canada unclear so that it is hard for us to judge precisely the level of stress Lazhar is under and thus the level of his stoical response to it.
Suffusing the entire play is the warmth of Bhaneja’s performance. The substitute teacher’s typical situation of trying to hide personal insecurity with a mask of certainty is one Lazhar does not escape when he leaves the classroom as he tries to find a path in a culture whose ways he does not quite understand. Under Jennifer Tarver’s sensitive direction, the mixtures of insight, frustration, anger and regret that play over Bhaneja’s face are a marvel of finely detailed acting. By the end in Morwyn Brebner’s excellent translation, the notion of finding “substitutes” for what we have lost to help get us through life takes on a far deeper meaning than the play’s humorous opening scenes lead us to expect. Lazhar is such a fascinating character and so well acted that one would gladly have the play last longer than its 75 minutes if only to allow the playwright to find a less artificial way of devising its ending.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2008-11-09
Photo: Raoul Bhaneja. ©Cylla von Tiedemann.
2008-11-09
Bashir Lazhar