Reviews 2010
Reviews 2010
✭✭✭✩✩
written by Michael Nathanson, directed by Ted Dykstra
Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company,
Jane Mallett Theatre, Toronto
March 4-20, 2010
Can a single word spoken by a third party break up an 18-year friendship between two men? Oddly enough, the answer seems to be “Yes” in Winnipegger Michael Nathanson’s 2007 play Talk, now receiving its Toronto premiere by the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company. Nathanson gives the old story of the dubious woman who destroys the innocent idyll of male bonding a twist in that one friend, Joshua (Michael Rubenfeld), is Jewish and the other, Gordon (Kevin Bundy), is not.
Joshua and Gordon meet in a bar because Gordon would like to know what Joshua thinks of Clotilde, his future fiancée. A fatal hesitation in answering shows Gordon that Joshua disapproves. Why? It is because Clotilde, speaking of the kefiya she was wearing, told Joshua that her mother bought it for her in “Palestine.” Joshua finds this word deeply insulting because while Israel is a country, Palestine, officially, is not. To Joshua using that word signifies that Clotilde is anti-Israel and hence anti-Jewish. It may seem that Joshua is over-reacting, but Gordon’s automatic defence of Clotilde and belittling of Joshua’s sense of outrage undermines Gordon’s claim of friendship. Each word one says pushes the other further away.
The main flaw of Talk is that Joshua and Gordon are not evenly matched. Joshua has a sly humour that in his asides links him to the audience. Gordon is reflective but dull. Joshua is an intellectual who speaks from both mind and heart. The naive Gordon, as Nathanson makes clear, merely parrots the political views of Clotilde that she herself parrots from her activist mother. To succeed as a debate both men should be equally smart and funny and equipped with their own ideas.
Nevertheless, Talk succeeds best at presenting a closely observed look at how any two friends, no matter what the point of contention, can grow apart. Through quick alternation of dialogue and asides to the audience, admirably emphasized by Steve Lucas’s rapid lighting cues, we perceive the contrast between what is said and thought. Under Ted Dykstra’s deft direction both Bundy and Rubenfeld give excellent, truthful performances. Just a note to the Artistic Director: please leave a pause after the end of the play and before the nightly talkback sessions so that those who do not wish to stay can exit freely.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2010-03-05.
Photo: Kevin Bundy and Michael Rubenfeld. ©Rachael McCaig.
2010-03-05
Talk