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written and directed by Jordan Tannahill

Canadian Stage, Berkeley Street Theatre Downstairs, Toronto

January 25-February 11, 2018

“This is what death looks like.  This is what I look like”

For no play should it be necessary to read the house programme or the Playwright’s Note to understand what a play is about or what procedure it is following.  Yet, without reading the programme an audience member will have no clue what Jordan Tannahill’s latest work Declarations is about or even what its subject matter is until the very last minutes of the 70-minute-long show.  Unlike Tannahill’s more familiar work like Late Company (2013) or Concord Floral (2014), Declarations is not a play.  Rather it is an abstract performance piece combining text and movement.  Tannahill claims it is a “ritual”, but, if so, it is a ritual without efficacy if observers do not know what it celebrates or commemorates.

The action takes place on a brightly lit square.  Liz Peterson enters.  The text scrolls down teleprompters fixed to the front of the balcony with a miscellany of sentences such as: “This is a window.  This is the colour red.  This is stubbing my toe.  This is Juliette Binoche.  This is a bad wi-fi signal.  This is God.  This is an indifferent blowjob.  This is is how to pronounce ‘Goethe’.  This is a rimjob.  This is the constellation Andromeda”.  After each declaration, Peterson acts it out.  What enjoyment there in the show comes from seeing how inventively she finds physical means to communicate the verbal statement.  The more abstract the statement, the more fun it is to watch. 

Yet after about ten minutes of what seems like an overextended drama school exercise, we long for some notion of what all these statements and acting out is all about.  Tannahill does not provide this.  Instead, Peterson is joined by Jennifer Dahl and the two alternate in performing more seemingly random items in the statement-depiction series.  Sometime they work in synch.  Sometimes not.  Just when this is about to become wearying they are joined by Philip Nozuka, and shortly afterwards by Robert Abubo and Danielle Baskerville, who unfortunately does not speak at the same volume as the other four so that many of her statements go unheard.

Throughout this phase a statement about an unidentified “she” occurs, such as “This is how she would comb her hair” or “This is how she would walk”.  These statements stick out from the rest because they seem to describe another person.  We assume it is the same other female person.

Once all five are present, things change slightly.  The statements become not so random and are often related.  Each of the five may act out part of a house or parts of the body.  After Peterson says, “This is a lighting cue”, the lights go out.  After this is a sound cue, “Pre-recorded choral music, composed by Nozuka, is broadcast”.  After this break we see, in no particular order, all five speaking and demonstrating at the same time, or all five not speaking but still demonstrating at the same time, or all humming a tune taking the sweet-voiced Nozuka’s lead.  Once the five each declare, “This is fuchsia!” and each acts it out in a different way.  Once the five each declare, “This is how my mother laughs” and each acts it out in a different way.

Eventually, short phrases replace the short “This is ...” statements, and the piece starts to turn into a form of choral narration, except that the elements of the story are so fragmented that it’s hard to piece together what is being described.  My impression was that a woman had fallen down in the bathtub and hit her head which started bleeding, but I could be completely wrong.  These short phrases devolve into a counting and chanting dance which goes on far too long. 

In the very last minutes of the performance, Peterson speaks in complete sentences for the first time and tells of standing at a bus stop and remembering she forgot her phone.  The last time she sees her mother is when she runs out of the house, still bald from chemo, to give her the phone.

This final revelation may explain who the “she” was who kept appearing among all the odd random statements, but it certainly does not explain what has been going on for the previous 68 minutes.  Only by reading the Playwright’s Note do we realize that this woman is Tannahill’s mother.  Only by reading the Note do we realize that the play reflects his reaction to hearing the news of her cancer diagnosis. 

What Tannahill has put on stage suffers from two main flaws.  First, he has assumed incorrectly that the private “ritual” he has created in dealing with the potential for death will be understandable by people other than himself.  Second, by having the performers act out each of the miscellaneous declarations, our focus as an audience naturally shifts to the acting rather than to the seemingly meaningless series of statements.  Although the physical movement is all that gives the show its interest, it also distracts us from Tannahill’s experience of a fragmented reality that would be better served by words alone.

Even Tannahill’s note does not explain why there are five performers instead of three or seven or one, especially if the performance piece represents a personal reflection.  Oddly, the five seldom touch each other.  If they never did, we could see that as a sign of isolation.  Since they sometimes do, it feels as if the nature of  their communal presence has not been fully worked out.

Thus, Declarations has to be marked down as a failed experiment.  We have to praise the incredible creativity and physical stamina of the five performers, especially Liz Peterson, who is on stage for the entire show.  But despite their best efforts, the show is too abstract, too repetitive and too formless to be engaging, much less moving.  Let’s hope that Tannahill finds a more accessible way to deal with this subject matter.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photos: (from top) Philip Nozuka, Jennifer Dahl, LIz Peterson, Danielle Baskerville and Robert Abubo; Danielle Baskerville, Robert Abubo, Liz Peterson, Jennifer Dahl and Philip Nozuka.  ©2018 Alejandro Santiago.

For tickets, visit www.canadianstage.com.