Reviews 2014
Reviews 2014
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by Ned Dickens, directed by Adrian Proszowski
Theatreworks Productions, Pia Bouman Theatre, Toronto
November 20-December 7, 2014
“Primus amor Phoebi Daphne Peneia, quem non
fors ignara dedit, sed saeva Cupidinis ira”
“Peneian Daphne was Apollo's first love, which
not blind chance, but Cupid’s savage anger, gave” (Ovid, Metamorphoses, I:6)
The world premiere of Ned Dickens’ Paolo and Daphne presents the spectacle of a director and his fine cast doing their very best to make a silk purse our of a sow’s ear. Dickens has specialized in writing plays based on classical subjects and Paolo and Daphne is an attempt to relocate to contemporary Toronto Ovid’s tale of Apollo and Daphne, one of the more than 250 tales in verse collected in his Metamorphoses (8 ad). It is an intriguing idea. The first opera ever written, Dafne (1598) by Jacopo Peri, chose this story for its plot. Richard Strauss wrote some of his most glorious music for his operatic version of it, Daphne, in 1938. Both Peri’s and Strauss’s librettists set their works in the ancient world. Where Dickens’ fails is in creating a believable enough modern drama to reflect this ancient story.
Ovid’s account is one of revenge, transformation and celebration. Apollo, god of reason and light, slew the deadly serpent Python and turned its lair into his oracle at Delphi. In an encounter with the boy-god Eros, son of Venus, Apollo boasts of his achievement and mocks Eros’s skill in archery. In revenge, Eros shoots the nymph Daphne with a golden arrow that produces undying hatred and shoots Apollo with a leaden arrow that produced undying love. The love-struck Apollo pursues the ever-fleeing Daphne until she begs her father, the river-god Peneus, for help. His response it to turn her into a tree, specifically the bay laurel. Apollo decreed that forever after her leaves would crowns rulers and poets.
In Paolo and Daphne, Dickens omits the revenge part of the story and starts right in with Paolo/Apollo’s pursuit of Daphne. Paolo (W. Joseph Matheson) is a cynical immigration lawyer in Toronto with a reputation of being helpful in getting pretty women into Canada especially in return for sexual favours. Daphne (Karen Glave) is his dedicated personal assistant. When the play opens, Paolo, asleep on the pull-out bed of the sofa in his office after a booze-fueled evening, immediately declares his love for Daphne, again, while she responds to him, again, that she can never love him. We can understand why Paolo might love Daphne, but why she can never return his love is never explained. Besides this, since they have apparently been colleagues for a long time and since Paolo’s unreciprocated love has existed from the start, it stretches believability that they have not worked out this problem before now. How exactly have they managed to work together without resolving this issue?
Into their world steps a young woman (Daniella Forget) with a Slavic accent who tells Paolo he can call her Illyria, without suggesting that that is her real name. Not only is Illyria the setting for Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, about a chain of unrequited loves, but it is also the ancient name of Thrace, which in Byzantine times would have extended into the former Yugoslavia, including Bosnia among other republics.
Hungry, sleepless and not having bathed, Illyria asks Paolo if she can use his shower. He agrees and when she emerges, she who had previous been quite and withdrawn, throws herself at Paolo to initiate sex. We might accept that Paolo is a sleazy lawyer, but it is impossible to believe that he would agree to Illyria’s request for a shower before ever taking down any of her personal information. He is a lawyer, after all, and can be entrapped and sued like any other person in a position of authority. We are meant to believe that she throws herself at Paolo because she has been told to do so by other immigrants he has helped. Yet, when we later hear her story of how she had been gang-raped in Bosnia, the idea that she would agree to see such a lawyer, let alone act as a sexual aggressor is beyond implausible.
When Paolo finally convinces Illyria that he is not interested, she apologizes for her error and they try to proceed with a normal interview. Illyria, however, will not tell Paolo her real name or where she is from, and while Paolo objects, he still says he can help her. After a series of poorly motivated exits and entrances for both Illyria and Daphne, the three finally find themselves together and Illyria claims that Paolo and Daphne are characters in the book she carries, which just happens to be Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The three duly read out Ovid’s account of Apollo and Daphne, whereupon Dickens introduces the idea that we all have a story that is like the thread that helped guide Theseus into the labyrinth to kill the minotaur and out again. Basically, Dickens is repackaging the pop psych notion that we all have to confront our inner demon to move forward. Daphne alludes to her “minotaur” but we still never learn precisely what it is. Paolo tells us his Phaëton-inspired story of his son. And Illyria, who now sometimes goes by Io or Callisto (both nymphs raped by Jupiter), tells of the horrors of Bosnia.
Far too obviously, Dickens acts as a puppeteer forcing his characters into situations whether there is sufficient motivation for them or not. The idea of having modern life reflect mythic reality is part of the Modernist movement and is most completely embodied in a novel like James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922). There, however, the motivation of every thought and action of the novel’s three main characters is minutely correlated with mythological precedents. In Dickens, after 90 minutes of talk, we still have no handle on the personalities of any of the characters. All we now is that they are modern representatives of ancient figures.
Yet, even this fails. If Paolo is Apollo why associate him with liquor and sex, the attributes of his diametric opposite, Bacchus or Dionysus? If Daphne is meant to reflect her namesake, why hasn’t she already fled Paolo?
Dramaturgically, the play is a mess. Dickens has Daphne exit. A scene ensues between Paolo and Illyria. Illyria exits. Daphne enters and Paolo has to describe to Daphne the scene between him and Illyria that we have just witnessed. Dickens does this twice in a row, which is two times too many for any play that can be called well written.
Luckily for Dickens his play could not be better directed and performed than it is in Theatreworks production. Director Adrian Proszowski keeps the pacing tight and action-filled and all three cast members play their roles with undeniable intensity. Daniella Forget as Illyria has perhaps the most difficult role since most of what she has to do, including shooting an arrow out the window, makes no sense. Yet, despite everything, she manages to muster sympathy for her character. One expects that her character will be revealed as a lunatic, only to find that Dickens is using her to preach his moral, several times, that we must understand our stories since they are modelled on archetypal stories from the past.
Theatreworks’ mandate is “Re-imagining through exploration and creative production the telling of stories derived from ancient texts”. It’s easy to see how Paolo and Daphne fits that mandate, but that does not make it a good play. The director and cast work so well together it would be wonderful to see them work together on another project, one that is really worthy of their talent and dedication.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: (from top) W. Joseph Matheson, Karen Glave, Daniella Forget and cellist Samuel Bisson; . ©2014 Theatreworks Productions.
For tickets, visit https://totix.ticketpro.ca/?lang=en#def_1105982850.
2014-12-03
Paolo and Daphne