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written and directed by Brad Fraser

Factory Theatre, Factory Theatre Mainspace, Toronto

October 1-November 1, 2009

Brad Fraser has a reputation for shocking audiences with sordid depictions of sex and violence, but his latest play gives quite a different kind of shock.  True Love Lies is like a live two-hour cable sitcom filled with “mature content” but one that aims to please rather than antagonize.  It’s quite a departure for Fraser and could likely become his biggest hit yet.  

The play begins with a depiction of a clichéd sitcom family.  Kane (Ashley Wright) and Carolyn (Julie Stewart) are partners in life and in business, their constant shows of affection causing eye-rolling and wisecracks between their two children--Madison (Susanna Fournier), who is trying to get a job, and Royce (Andrew Craig), their computer geek son.  All is well until Madison is barred from a job at a new restaurant because the owner, David (David W. Keeley), once knew Madison’s father.  Kane and David, in fact, were lovers and attempts to control the fallout from this revelation propel the action in hilarious and unexpected directions.  Fraser has written and directed the play so much in the laugh-a-minute style of TV sitcoms, complete with unnaturally zingy comebacks and much-too-perfect one-liners, that one must assume Fraser has done so consciously to wrench this mindless model, along with the institution of marriage, into unfamiliar territory.  In this he brilliantly succeeds so that the play gradually morphs into a genuine human comedy on a more satisfying, more realistic, more emotional plane.  

It has an ideal cast who work as a real ensemble.  Keeley shows that David, the hunk who attracts both sexes, despite his flair is all too aware his life is leading to loneliness.  Wright is fully believable as the now-doughy straight guy who could actually have had a passionate secret life.  Stewart’s character seems to be going nowhere until she realizes that chaos can lead to rebirth.  Fournier is excellent as a pert, potty-mouthed Lolita who has to confront her waywardness, and Craig successfully turns Royce’s teenaged alienation from funny to frightening.  Thus, at a dizzying pace, Fraser’s nuclear family blows up, but its demise is not a cause for sorrow but for discarding boxes of preconceived labels about what human relationships should be.  

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2009-10-08.

Photo: Julie Stewart, Ashley Wright and Andrew Craig. ©Ed Gass-Donnelly.