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by Evan Placey, directed by Nina Lee Aquino

Young People’s Theatre, Toronto

April 21-May 8, 2016

“A Tale of Two Scarboroughs”

Young People’s Theatre concludes its 50th anniversary celebrations with the world premiere of Scarberia by Evan Placey.  Both a mystery and an examination of friendship, the play may be intended for young adults aged 14 and over, but it is more challenging for both audiences and performers than most new plays intended for adult audiences.  It’s a fascinating play made all the more exciting by the cast’s powerful performances. 

Evan Placey, born in Scarborough and now resident in England, has set the action simultaneously in Scarborough, Ontario, and Scarborough, North Yorkshire.  The high school girl Marisha (Alejandra Simmons) disappears from the Canadian Scarborough and her body inexplicably washes up on the shore of the British Scarborough.  The 15-year-old boys in Britain, Craig (Shelly Anthony) and Simon (Mishka Thébaud), find the body but are afraid to tell the police because they think they’ll be found out as the ones who recently vandalized a public sculpture. 

The play presents a major challenge for the two actors playing the boys.  They have to be able to switch instantly from a North Yorkshire accent to a Canadian urban youth accent and make it absolutely clear which pair of boys they are from moment to moment.  In that latter part of the play these switches in accent occur as quickly as from line to line.  Anthony and Thébaud meet these technical difficulties with astonishing ease and, though Canadian, they sound perfectly natural in both accents.  The Craig/Craven character is the innocent member of each pair and the Simon/Simian character is the one with a secret.  Nevertheless, Anthony and Thébaud clearly distinguish their two roles not just through accent but through their acting.  The friendship between Craig and Simon is clearly easier than the tense relationship between Craven and Simian. 

Alejandra Simmons gives an appealing performance as Marisha.  This role has its own challenges since Placey has written it entirely in a type of hip-hop poetry.  Simmons speaks the poetry with flair and sass all the while projecting Marisha’s increasing worry that the situation she is in is getting out of hand.

Joanna Yu has designed a clever set in the form of a bridge with wide steps that under Michelle Ramsay’s lighting can appear as a pier, a broken wall or the Scarborough Bluffs. 

Placey has Simon refer to the “many worlds” theory as the way that he has coped with his mother’s death.  His notion is that while in this world his mother has died, in another she is still alive.  According to this theory there is a separate world for every outcome of every decision that one makes.  In the context of Placey’s plot this momentarily confuses matters since we begin to wonder whether we are meant to think that the two pairs of boys with the initials C. and S. on opposite sides of the Atlantic are really the same boys but in different dimensions. 

As it happens, this sci-fi notion is not the case at all.  Placey later makes it quite clear that he is really presenting us with two sets of boys in this world.  The only good point the “many worlds” theory makes is that both sets of boys faced with a criminal matter – not reporting a crime – react to their shared guilt in opposite ways.  While the pressure eventually brings Craig and Simon together, it breaks Craven and Simeon apart.  The mystery this opens up is not just about what exactly happened to Marisha but about human nature.  How is it that Craig and Simon’s friendship can overcome fear and that Craven and Simian’s cannot.

It’s a question that will have you wanting to see the play again just as soon as it’s over.  When too many new plays written for mature adults end with simple answers to difficult questions, it’s refreshing to find that a playwright like Placey trusts his young adult audience enough to leave them with a paradox.  Scarberia is an innovative, thought-provoking play that is given strong advocacy by all three performers.  It makes one hope to see more of Placey’s work on Toronto stages in the future.  

                

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive. 

Photos: (from top) Mishka Thébaud, Alejandra Simmons and Shelly Antony; Mishka Thébaud and Shelly Anthony. ©2016 Cylla von Tiedemann

For tickets, visit www.youngpeoplestheatre.ca.