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by Michael Healey, directed by Richard Rose

Tarragon Theatre, Tarragon Theatre Mainspace, Toronto

January 6-February 10, 2010

"Discretion is the better part of valour"

The Tarragon Theatre is currently presenting the world premiere of Michael Healey’s “Courageous”, a co-production with Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre.  Since Healey’s last play was “Generous”, one wonders whether this is the second in a series of plays about virtue.  Like “Generous”, “Courageous” has a peculiar structure.  In “Generous” Healey gave us the first acts of four two-act plays followed by three of their second acts.  Here each of the two acts is really two loosely connected one-act plays--the first focussed on gay couples, the second on straight couples-- that together form a diptych on the theme of marriage and faith.  In this “Courageous” is a much more successful and deeper play than “Generous”.

Act 1 begins with the marriage of twentysomething slackers Todd and Tammy at city hall, but only after Tammy accuses her bridesmaid Lisa of still trying to get her clutches on Todd.  Todd is only going through with the wedding because Tammy is pregnant.  The next couple is the lawyer Brian and his partner Martin.  A problem occurs when Tom, the municipal clerk who married Todd and Tammy and who is a devout Catholic but who also happens to be gay, refuses to marry Brian and Martin because, despite its being a civil ceremony, Tom says that it is against his religion.

Where Act 1 was presented in the mode of conventional realism, Act 2 begins with Todd speaking directly to us as narrator and even interacting with the audience.  Tammy has now had her baby and urges Todd to get a job.  He goes out to look for work with George, a political refugee from Somalia, and both are hired by Pete, an ex-alcoholic.  Pete, who is now an evangelical Christian, brings George into the church and George thrives until he is promoted above Todd.  this only feed Todd’s idea that we should abolish the concept of “fairness” since it only makes experience bad situations as even worse.

Both parts of the play have conceptual difficulties.  The situation in Act 1 is extremely contrived.  No matter how devout he is, Tom’s religion can play no part in executing his civic duties.  He claims that gay marriage wasn’t legal when he became a clerk, but, clearly, if the notion offended his religion, he more logically would have changed jobs then instead of waiting for the objectionable situation to arise.  The other problem is that Tom’s partner of three years is Arthur.  Not only is their relationship “open”, which seems inconsistent with Tom’s principles but he is a wealthy Sudanese immigrant and materialistic non-practising Muslim.  The two men are so completely different in outlook that it is impossible to see how their relationship could have lasted one night much less three years.  Here, Healey’s goal of leaving Tom absolutely abandoned and betrayed by the end forced him to create a highly improbable plot.

The plot is Act 2 is much more realistic, but having Todd as narrator causes difficulties.  Todd admits that he is stupid and all his actions confirm that, yet Healey also uses Todd to voice some of the prime insights into the action.  Todd notes that a marriage is not made by saying “yes” once but by saying "yes" in innumerable ways every day.  then he expands on this notion by saying that thus a nation is made by its citizens saying “yes” to certain conditions every day.  This constant re-affirmation would seem to be the “courageous” action Healey’s title refers to.  It’s a fascinating notion but it’s also unlikely that the stupidest person in the play would think of it much less be able to express it so clearly.  Healey also insists on Todd the narrator as a comedian even though the plot he narrates becomes increasingly less comic.  The curious result of these inconsistencies is that Act 1 presents one gripping after the next, so well written that we almost forget their unlikelihood.  The high-point of the play is the confrontation between Tom and Brian, an almost Shavian intellectual debate, in which Tom ultimately begs Brian to show him mercy.   Meanwhile, Act 2 with its distancing through a narrator and its large number of short scenes is much less engaging.

Despite these difficulties director Richard Rose draws committed performances from the entire cast.  Tom Barnett is excellent at capturing Tom’s contradictory nature--a weak person with strong convictions.  Although his character claims he is not seeking martyrdom, Barnett seems to make that his only goal that makes any sense of Tom’s illogical choices his his work and personal life.  Patrick Galligan is forceful as Brian but but shows enough humanity in his debate with Tom that it seems he really does consider backing down from his threat.  Brandon McGibbon as Todd is risking becoming typecast as a slacker, but is only because he is so good at it.  It is natural, however, that as Todd becomes more philosophical, McGibbon tones down Todd’s dumbness.  Erin MacKinnon is able to take Tammy from being a caricature to truly sympathetic figure.  Lisa is a written as a more one-dimensional character, but Melissa MacPherson is so adept at making us believe there is more to her that it is disappointing when realize at the end there is not.

   

Maurice Dean Wint and Tom Rooney both play two characters.   Wint clearly distinguishes the well-spoken Arthur, a man we would like to like but cannot, from George with his broken English, a humble man whom we like right from his first appearance.  Rooney’s first character Martin, is such a introverted doormat, it is hard to see how he could appeal to either Brian or Arthur.  Rooney’s straightforward Pete, however, is more successful.

David Boechler’s set of two walls made of woven laths neatly reflects the bipartite nature of the play and suggests, what is not really the case, that the strands of the two stories are intertwined.  As usual Andrea Lundy’s lighting is precise and effective.

From the loud, positive response it received at a Sunday matinee, Healey’s latest play is clearly entertaining.  As soon as the lights went up, however, it was easy to tell that couples and groups broke into remarks like “But why did he do that?” or “I don’t see what this had to do with that.”  For Healey’s play to live up to its title, it should lead audiences to question their beliefs not his plot.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Cast of Courageous. ©Cylla von Tiedemann.