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written by Franz Xaver Kroetz, directed by Philip Riccio

Company Theatre, Tarragon Theatre Extra Space, Toronto

September 14-October 3, 2010

The Company Theatre’s production of Through the Leaves is a devastating portrait of a relationship.  The company that uncovered the nasty sides of families in masterful productions of Whistle in the Dark in 2005 and Festen in 2008, turns its gaze towards the darker aspects of what can bind two unhappy people together.  German playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz gives us such depth of insight into his two characters it’s hard to believe the play lasts only 75 minutes.

In expertly matched, beautifully understated performances, Maria Vacratsis is Martha and Nicholas Campbell is Otto.  Martha is a butcher with her own shop.  She is plain and in her 50s and has spent so much time in building up her business she has never had time for love and would likely have thought love had passed her by until she meets Otto.  Otto, however, is an old-fashioned male chauvinist pig.  In his narrow mind men and women have set roles and dare not stray outside them.  It drives him mad that Martha is independent and makes more money than he, a butcher for a company and not his own boss.  The action moves forward through entries in Martha’s diary recounting in euphemistic terms the course of their “romance.”  What we see is Martha trying to hold onto a drunken lout of a man she views as her last chance at love, while we see Otto insult and degrade a woman he views as merely an outlet for sex and a target for rage against the changes in the world order that make him feel inadequate.  He says he has sex with Martha because he pities her, but the ignorance and self-hatred that motivate his bravado make him at least as pitiable.  

It is to the credit of director Philip Riccio and his two fine actors that relationship of these two sad people is so utterly believable.  Designer John Thompson creates a divided set--clean and white in the back where Martha’s shop is, grungy and true the 1981 period where Martha’s flat is.  Martha sells offal, the insides of animals people don’t want except for their dogs.  She herself is someone no one wants except for a lone human beast.  Kroetz assumes that individuals are essentially alone and cannot truly know each other.  Yet companionship helps people bear their aloneness.  Which is worse, then, a life of loneliness or a life lived with someone who demeans you?  See the play and debate into the night.  As the Bavarian proverb says, "If you go through the leaves, you must bear with the rustling."  

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2010-09-16.

Photo: Nicholas Campbell and Maria Vacratsis.  ©Guntar Kravis.