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by Erin Vandenberg, directed by Briana Brown

Lark & Whimsy Theatre Collective, Alumnae Studio Theatre, Toronto

September 20-28, 2016

Petal: “I can make the sky whatever colour I want”

The Lark & Whimsy Theatre Collective is currently presenting the world premiere of Erin Vandenberg’s first play Salt.  Though the play concerning addiction and mental illness has certain hallmarks of a first play, it is consistently engaging and director Briana Brown elicits a number of superior performances from the five-person cast.  What’s more, the play receives the most technically advanced production I’ve seen in the Alumnae Studio Theatre.   

The plot concerns the return home of Lilias (Cosette Derome), who has been away at university in Toronto.  What is peculiar is that she has made absolutely no contact with her family for an entire year except for a postcard sent to announce her arrival.  There are several possible reasons for Lilias’ actions but the main one would seem to be her attempt to free herself from an intolerable life with her delusional, alcoholic mother Vivian (Philippa Domville).  Another reason for her departure was to terminate the unwanted pregnancy that resulted from her relationship with her boyfriend George (Geoffrey Armour). 

The reason for Lilias’ return, though this is never made clear, is likely guilt over leaving her younger sister Petal (Lucy Hill) alone with Vivian for so long.  What she discovers is quite disturbing.  Petal, who is only three years younger than Lilias, has apparently retreated to a childhood fantasy world, no doubt to find some safe place away from her unstable mother. 

Salt would be a realistic, kitchen-sink play except for one factor.  Vivian has become obsessed with telling Petal about her great-aunt Rose (Stephanie Jung) and how she went to England and died, having brought disgrace on the family by marrying a chimney-sweep.  Vandenberg breaks conventional notions of realism by bringing Rose, who may be only a figment of Vivian’s imagination, on stage.  While the Rose who stars in Vivian’s fantastic tale may be a fiction, we soon realize that there was really a Rose in Vivian’s past who was her younger sister by three years.  The double question then becomes “What was the real story about Rose and Vivian and is that somehow being repeated in the lives of Petal and Lilias?” 

All of this keeps us intrigued but there are several issues that Vandenberg needs to clarify.  The most important is why Lilias went away and why she has come back.  We hear that Lilias went away to university and that she won a scholarship, but we never hear in what subject.  We also hear early on that she went away to have an abortion.  It’s very surprising when we find that Vivian knows about this since Lilias and she barely speak, and we wonder why she would give Vivian ammunition of any kind to use against her.  The first thing George wants to know about is how the abortion went, but Vivian doesn’t bring up the topic until late in Act 2.  So did Lilias leave home for both reasons and, if so, which one was the dominant one?

Why Lilias has returned is also unclear.  From her first conversation with George we learn that she has waited two months after university ended to come home.  If she was worried about Petal, why did she delay?  If she managed to remain out of contact with her family for a year, why get back in contact at all?

In terms of character relationships, Vandenberg makes it very unclear whether Lilias does or does not love George.  The dialogue shows that Lilias is much brighter than George is.  She has gone to university whereas he thinks of a promotion to cashier in the cigarette department of a chain store is a major rise.  We can see how as friends since childhood they might make a mistake that has led to an abortion, but none of Lilias’ statements about loving George ring true. 

In Act 2 an event occurs involving George which I won’t reveal.  It is problematic in two ways.  First, there is no preparation for it and it is completely out of character for George, whom Vandenberg has portrayed as a wimp.  Second, and worse, the event, which could potentially have major consequences, has none.  It looks like the remnant of a plot idea that Vandenberg has forgotten to edit out.

In terms of imagery, Vandenberg emphasizes water throughout – from  Rose’s refrain of “Drip, drip, drip” to Petal’s inexplicable obsession with rainwear to the climactic scene.  The problem is that the imagery does not cohere.  We see no rainwear ever in the show and don’t know how what it has to do with Petal’s main obsession with construction paper landscapes.  If Rose has died by drowning, which Vandenberg leads us to believe at one point, her refrain might make sense but, as we discover, her death has nothing to do with water.  Besides this, none of the water imagery helps explain the title.  Yes, salt (which is never mentioned) does dissolve in water, but so does sugar and any number of powders.  So what exactly is Vandenberg suggesting?

In terms of writing, Vandenberg often has dialogue suddenly switch gears without warning.  George and Lilias may begin by saying how much they love each other, but will suddenly switch into resentment and back to love.  It feels more like the author is manipulating the dialogue for her purposes than that the dialogue is taking its natural course.  It’s common for people who suffer from addiction or mental illness that their thoughts and expressions run in repeating circles.  That’s what leads the sufferers to the horrible feeling that they are trapped in their thoughts.  How to portray this in a play is difficult since repetition becomes tedious.  One way to solve this is to have each repetition bring forth new information or to have each one appear as progressively better or worse.  Vandenberg does not quite achieve this, and we become almost as tired of the same old arguments as the characters seem to be.

It’s easy to see why Philippa Domville would be eager to play a character like Vivian instead of the type of cool, well-bred women she has usually played.  As Vivian she gives a no-holds-barred performance that is almost frightening in its aggressiveness.  In fact, Domville could stand to pull back a bit since she is playing Vivian much larger than the others are playing their roles.  Indeed, the more quietly she plays the character, the more unnerving Vivian is.  One question is why Domville shifts between a British accent and an ordinary Ontario accent.  It seems that the first is when Vivian is particularly sloshed and fabulating and the other is when she comes back down from her high, but this is unclear.  Vandenberg’s portrayal of Vivian as played by Domville does capture the pain of alcoholism wherein the self-hatred of the alcoholic often turns into hatred of those closest to her which in turn leads to more self-hatred. 

Cosette Derome gives a forceful performance as Lilias even though both the nature of her character and her motivations are unclear.  Principally through the power of her acting and the intelligence she conveys, Derome makes us feel as if Lilias knows what she is doing even even when the play itself offers her little support. 

Geoffrey Armour is well cast as the sad sack George.  His gives the character a charming naiveté and shows that George’s meagre experience has done nothing to prepare him for the bizarre home life that Lilias and Petal have endured.  As Rose, Stephanie Jung is like a breath of fresh air – a paradox since she is primarily a figment of Vivian’s imagination.  Primly decked out in a 1950s gown and gloves, Rose reminds us of the mother (who happens to be named Vi) in Shelagh Stephenson’s The Memory of Water (1996), a spirit who only one of her three daughters can see.  As in that play, Vandenberg’s Rose corrects Vivian when she begins to lie about the past.  Jung gives Rose an effortless elegance and poise that contrasts with mental turmoil of all the other characters.             

This is the most elaborate production I have seen in the Alumnae Studio Theatre with a fine co-ordination of Gabriel Cropley’s lighting and Lyon Smith’s eerie sound design with Anna Treusch’s imaginative set and projections.  Treusch’s set intentionally looks like the pattern of a fold-and-glue-together paper house, though if you look closely at the lines you will note that the house will never come together properly.  Projected onto this set which gives so much insight into the play are animated projections reflecting Petal’s playing with construction paper.  Toward the end, the projections continue even when Petal is not alone on stage as if other characters like Lilias and George have been caught up in her escapist fantasies. 

The play unfortunately ends twice - once with a repetition of the very first scene which given what we know is now very powerful, then with an unneeded postlude that could just as well have been played without dialogue.  Despite its flaws, there is much to enjoy and to think over in Salt.  One eagerly looks forward to Vandenberg’s next play.  

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: (from top) Cosette Derome as Lilias and Lucy Hill as Petal (foreground),  Stephanie Jung as Rose (background); Philippa Domville as Vivian and Stephanie Jung as Rose.  ©2016 Robert Harding.

For tickets, visit www.larkandwhimsytheatre.com/salt.