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by Judith Thompson, directed by Nancy Palk

Soulpepper Theatre Company, Young Centre, Toronto

August 18-October 21, 2011

The great service revivals provide is in helping determine whether plays written in the past still speak to us today.  This is especially useful for Canadian drama where many plays are proclaimed masterpieces without ever having seen a second production.  Soulpepper’s revival of David French’s Leaving Home (1972) in 2007 proved that that play still retained its power as did the Théâtre français de Toronto’s revival this year of Michel Tremblay’s À toi, pour toujours, ta Marie-Lou (1971).  On the other hand, Factory Theatre’s revival of Beyond Mozambique (1974) in 2008 proved that play quite inferior to George F. Walker’s later work and Soulpepper’s revival of Guillermo Verdecchia’s Fronteras Americanas (1993) this year showed that what may have been thought a biting satire had lost its sting.  Viewing Soulpepper’s current revival of Judith Thompson’s White Biting Dog (1984) makes one wonder how such an absolute mess of a play could ever have won the Governor General’s Award.

Thompson has stated that her style is “magic realism and naturalism”, which, since these are opposites, suggests a certain amount of confusion.  Naturalism shows in a detailed cause-and-effect manner how characters’ fates have been determined by their heredity and environment.  Magic realism, as Maggie A. Bowers has said, “relies upon the presentation of real, imagined or magical elements as if they were real. It relies upon realism, but only so that it can stretch what is acceptable as real to its limits”.  Since White Biting Dog shows no interest in consistency of character, plot or cause-and-effect, it can hardly be called naturalistic.  Yet, for those same reasons it does not build up any basis of realism to stretch.  Even works of fantasy have to be internally consistent to be effective, but even that is not the case here.

The action begins when Cape Race (Mike Ross), a divorced former lawyer, is on the point of throwing himself off the Bloor Street Viaduct when he hears the voice of a white dog who tells him he can only save himself if he saves his dying father.  Coincidentally, though Cape thinks providentially, a young woman named Pony (Michaela Washburn) walks by singing a song about the same white dog, now dead, that she used to own.  Since she is both a psychic and a former paramedic, Cape enlists her help in accomplishing his “mission”.  Glidden (Joseph Ziegler), Cape’s father has been dying since his wife Lomia (Fiona Reid) left him.  He has been throwing peat moss on himself and dreaming of Gravenhurst, where his family is buried (note the pun), ever since.  When Pony goes into a trance she discovers that the only way Cape can save Glidden is if he can get Lomia to move back in with him.  Since Cape hates Lomia he believes this is impossible.  But again, coincidentally (or providentially), Lomia and her boy-toy Pascal (Gregory Prest) ask to move in because their apartment has just been burnt down by a meth addict. 

As far as magic realism goes, the set-up even with its various bizarreries, is perfectly fine.  How Thompson develops this set-up, however, is not.  It’s obvious that Cape must overcome his hatred of his mother to save his father and himself, but lying to Glidden about Lomia’s change of feelings makes no sense and is simply a ploy by Thompson to prolong the action.  How Cape’s prolonged French kissing of Lomia fits into this is a mystery.  Another mystery is how Cape guesses based on no evidence that Pascal has made fun of Lomia all around town.  Has he become psychic too?  Further events reveal, contrary to what has gone before, that Pascal, who has been sexually satisfying Lomia several times a day, is actually gay and that Cape, who has supposedly fallen deeply in love with Pony, enjoys sodomizing Pascal rather too much.  Worse are the endings (there is a false ending) that show the white dog’s prophesy and Pony’s psychic revelations are untrue.  The whole pretense to magic realism turns out to be false.  And worst of all, is Thompson’s transformation of Pony into an old-fashioned Christ figure, except that the sins she supposedly takes upon herself are unknown and her sacrifice saves no one. 

Like Thompson’s constant straining for outré metaphors, the play boils down to a series of effects without substance.  We can’t care about the characters since their personalities can switch anytime without notice and we can’t care about the story since it, too, zigzags pointlessly at the author’s whim. 

The cast could hardly be bettered, but since the play makes no sense realistically or symbolically, it is a tribute to first-time director Nancy Palk, long associated with Thompson’s work, that she has inspired them to become so fully engaged in their performances.  Though Cape’s behaviour becomes so erratic as to become incomprehensible, Mike Ross acts with passionate intensity as if that alone will guide us through his personality reversals.  Michaela Washburn is truly delightful in portraying Pony’s unworldly innocence (rather an anomaly in a paramedic) but can’t make us understand why Pony thinks her relationship with Cape is “evil” even though they love each other.  Her ludicrous speech about gorging herself on dead dachshund puppies comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere, suggesting that it is simply more of Thompson’s pleasure in outrageous for its own sake. 

In contrast, Glidden and Lomia are the two most believable characters in the play.  Though Glidden is merely a collection of quirks--peat moss, penchant for toast, telling of lame jokes--Joseph Ziegler imbues him with the touching personality of a man who hopes against hope.  Fiona Reid, otherwise known for her portrayals of highly intelligent women, revels in the chance to play the aging nymphomaniac airhead that is Lomia.  Since Thompson deigns to allow this character to change and become more self-aware, Reid has more to work with than the rest of the cast and unsurprisingly makes Lomia the most fascinating figure in the play.

Thompson is content to make Pascal a clichéd young gigolo for most of the play, giving actor Gregory Prest little to do.  In Act 2 she suddenly gives him a full emotional breakdown on stage and Prest, finally, the chance to display his impressive acting skill.  It’s a pity Thompson immediately has him exit and gives Cape no opportunity to interact with the broken young man.

It’s odd that designer Christina Poddubiuk, renowned for her fine work such as On the Rocks as the Shaw Festival this year, should come up with such an unattractive set.  Virtually the entire play is supposed to be set in a house in Rosedale, but Poddubiuk has allowed the initial scene on the viaduct to influence the entire design so that Glidden seems to be living in a bi-level loft in one of the city’s new cheaply built condos.  Palk keeps the geography of the set clear through Act 1, but in Act 2 it starts to become unclear where events are occurring, even whether they are inside or outside the house. 

Palk has had sound designer Richard Feren allow a low electric hum to run throughout the play that changes to loud static at scene changes.  She hopes by this means to reflect the electricity she imagines in the characters’ interactions, but since Thompson has rarely created any in her text, the effect comes across, as does the whole play, as meaninglessly portentous. 

The handing out of annual awards does not take into account the fact that great works are not produced in equal quantity every year.  White Biting Dog may have been the best English-language play of 1984, but that has little weight if 1984 produced an unremarkable crop of drama.  It was certainly not Soulpepper’s intention, but this revival of Thompson’s play with a cast who give it their all only demonstrates that it really is not “the great Toronto play” that people have claimed it is.           

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Fiona Reid and Mike Ross. ©2011 Cylla von Tiedemann.

For tickets, visit www.soulpepper.ca.