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by Tim Crouch, directed by Celeste Percy-Beauregard

SoCo Theatre, Toronto Fringe Festival, 401 Richmond Street, Toronto

July 5-14, 2012

“The patients like to look at the paintings. It helps them to feel better about their illnesses.” from Part 1 of England

I’m very sorry to have seen the play England so late in its run at the Fringe because I would have wanted to encourage as many people as possible to attend it.  I would have been even sorrier to have missed it, since I came away thinking this must be one of the most important British plays of the previous decade.  Not only is Tim Crouch’s play utterly fascinating but SoCo Theatre gives it an immaculate production.  Let’s hope they will revive it in the near future.

Tim Crouch specifies that England must be performed in an art gallery.  That’s one reason the play that debuted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2007 is not better know, but Crouch’s conception is integral to communicating his themes.  The Toronto production takes place at 401 Richmond, a refurbished historic building that now houses various galleries and art-related organizations.  Even more than being decorated with artworks throughout, the fact that 401 Richmond is an old building that has found new life is a perfect reflection of the events of the play.

The audience gathers in the foyer of the building where we are met by actor Jenna Turk and actor/director Celeste Percy-Beauregard.  Since Crouch does not give the characters names, I will simply refer to one as Jenna and the other as Celeste.  The two inform us about the history of 401 Richmond and take on the roles of tour guides to lead us through the building.  What is slightly disturbing is that both are wearing hospital gowns and slippers.  In between comments about architecture and history, each mentions that her boyfriend “saved her life”.  Their comments about their boyfriend, a wealth art dealer born in the Netherlands, begin to echo each other to such an extent that we start to wonder whether Jenna and Celeste really represent the same person.  But why has Crouch divided her into two bodies?  In the original production, Crouch played one of the “tour guides”, thus lending further complications to this division.

Jenna and Celeste tell us that their boyfriend is an expert in art because he knows when to buy and when to sell.  “My boyfriend says that good art is art that sells.”  It’s best to buy just before the artist dies because after his or her death the prices will skyrocket.  It becomes clear fairly quickly that the boyfriend the two so admire is interested in art only as a commodity.  Nevertheless, art lasts, whereas human beings do not.  As the two increasingly tell us more about their lives as we tour the building, we discover that they are seriously unwell.  In fact, they suffer from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition that can cause sudden death due to arrhythmia.  Both have exhausted all the least intrusive attempts at a solution.  Now only a heart transplant can save them. 

A tension thus develops between out dying tour guides and the perfection and immortality of art they discuss.  They mention art as therapy but also suggest how inadequate the perfection of art makes them feel.  The tour itself becomes less realistic.  As we move from room to room, they begin to tell us we are first in different parts of London and then in different parts of England and Scotland, so that, ultimately, the 401 Richmond becomes a metaphor for the United Kingdom itself.  The last place we visit in part one of the hour-long play is a stately home in Scotland that has now become a centre for experimental medicine.  It is an example of how a building survives through by being rejuvenated.  At the same time the guides seem finally to come to terms with finality and to accept with peace that life must end.  Her boyfriend, however, cannot cope with this and will do anything to prevent his girlfriend’s death.  They reject living in heaven as like “living in a museum”. 

In the second part of the play the audience is seated in a gallery, here the Urbanspace Gallery, which is meant to represent a hotel room.  Both Jenna and Celeste wear headscarves out of respect for a third unseen Middle Eastern woman in the room.  Jenna and (then after they switch roles) Celeste play the same woman who as guided us through the building.  Now she is healthy and recovering from the heart transplant she received.  She has come to thank the woman whose husband was the donor by giving her a painting.  Jenna first plays the patient and Celeste the translator.  Then they ceremoniously change roles, the translator with a perfectly wrapped scarf, the patient with a haphazard attempt.  During this emotionally painful section, the translator eventually does not translate all that the patient says and begins to give advice to the woman.  The play ends with a series of terrible revelations.

Two speakers representing one person.  One play with two contrasting halves.  An English woman with the heart of a Middle Eastern man in her body.  In his structure in only one hour Crouch has amazingly raised myriad questions about life, death and art and the commodification of all three.  He has also juxtaposed theatre which only live for the moment and then in memory (much like a human being) with visual art which outlasts human lives.  The guides’ commentary, however, ambiguously see visual art both as a sign of life and as something dead,

The context of the play along with the form of presentation enhance the resonances of the these three fundamental topics to such an extent that you feel you will need days to unravel all the associations that Crouch has made.  What is clear from a political point of view is Crouch disdain of the West for its heartlessness (note the guides’ disease) in regarding non-Westerners and even the works of art and architecture created in the West.  In that way, this explosive play is a portrait of England.

If only there were more performances I would say, “Be sure not to miss it.”  Since that is not possible, let’s hope Soco Theatre can remount the play with its heartfelt, heart-wrenching performances by both Jenna and Celeste.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Celeste Percy-Beauregard. ©2012 Daniel Novisedlak.

For tickets, visit http://fringetoronto.com.