✭✭✭✭✩

by Jill Daum, directed by Peter Pasyk

Here For Now Theatre Company, Here For Now Theatre, Stratford

June 20-July 6, 2025

Tom: “The season of cement”

The Here For Now Theatre Company’s second main production in its new home is the Ontario premiere of Forget About Tomorrow by BC writer Jill Daum. The play, which had its world premiere in Victoria in 2018, is about a middle-aged couple, Tom and Jane, who have to cope with Tom’s diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s, a rare form of the disease that makes up less than ten percent of all Alzheimer’s cases. While the play does not fully escape the aura of the “disease of the week” movies that were popular in the 1970s and ’80s, it does provide four great roles for the four oldest members of the ensemble.

The action begins with Tom singing a song that he has written for his and Jane’s wedding anniversary. He forgets how the song goes partway through and is upset with himself, but Jane has forgotten about the anniversary entirely so we don’t know that forgetfulness will be a major part of the story. Instead, the initial focus is not Tom as much as it is on the couple’s son Aaron. Aaron’s older sister Wynn has already left home for university in Toronto, so when Aaron leaves for Montreal, Tom and Jane will become empty-nesters. Aaron is meant to become bilingual to have better chances in a business career, but Aaron’s main interest in music and songwriting, not business.

We learn a bit late in the story that Tom is a successful psychotherapist. Jane works in a children’s store called “The Nest”, owned by the eccentric Lori, a married woman with children who plans to embark on an affair with a gorgeous, young stranger. As for Jane, as fate would have it, Wayne, a charming, handsome middle-aged man, comes in the store looking for presents to give his new grand-daughter. He is recently widowed, Jane neglects to mention she is married and two immediately feel they are on the same wavelength.

After Tom receives his diagnosis, relations between Tom and Jane disimprove. Tom calls it “the season of cement”, intending to say “discontent”. Tom becomes irritable when Jane seems to be acting more as his mother than his wife and Jane fears for the future of witnessing Tom’s decline and feels totally unprepared to become his caretaker. The increase in tension at home only makes Jane look forward to Wayne’s visits even more until the two reach a dangerous point that threatens to undermine Jane’s marriage.

Daum presents the devolution of Jane’s relationship with Tom and the evolution of her relationship with Wayne in a logical step-by-step manner, though it is hard not to feel that she is deliberately trying to tamp down as much of the melodrama she can in an inherently melodramatic situation. Daum has Tom, Jane and Wayne speak in language that is ordinary to a fault, and she has the three behave in such a reasonable fashion we almost wonder why we worried about any danger. Besides this, Daum uses Lori as the play’s comic relief, her reports on the progress of her affair serving as an amusing counterpoint to Jane and Wayne’s mutual attraction.

What makes the play worth seeing are the outstanding performances of the entire cast. For frequent theatre-goers, what is especially enjoyable is seeing the four most familiar actors triumph in roles quite unlike those they have previous played. Chief among these is Raquel Duffy, who has been a vital ensemble member numerous times but has never been the central focus of a play the way Jane is here. In Jane, Daum has created a great role that contains an enormous range of emotions – love, anger, boldness, embarrassment, grief, joy and innumerable mixtures of all these. It is a joy to see how Duffy brings all the complex feelings of her character to life where no one emotion is uninfluenced by several others. This is truly masterful acting that does not call attention to itself but serves to illuminate the full humanity of the character.

Geoffrey Pounsett has played a wide range of authority figures in the past. It is therefore fascinating to see him play a man who unsuccessfully tries to suppress his fear of losing control over his life and over his mind. Pounsett is excellent at showing how Tom struggles to remain the person he used to be even while, step-by-step he notices how little failures in his memory and actions begin to mount up. Pounsett gives powerful portrait of a man who sees his very identity slipping away.

Kevin Bundy has played numerous comic figures, but this is the first time I recall his playing a romantic lead. Why has it taken so long? Someone as good-looking, kind, gentle, witty and honest at he plays Wayne would sweep anyone off their feet. It is a treat to see how Bundy has Wayne become increasingly attracted to Jane, hesitantly at first but moving toward growing confidence.

Pamela Sinha has previously played deadly serious roles so that it is a pleasure to see her play outright comedy for a change. Sinha makes Lori’s accounts of the various stages of her affair very funny but also fully believable. Though Sinha portrays Lori as comically self-absorbed, Sinha is also able to make Lori’s compassion for Jane and her troubles come across as sincere.

Given how rounded the parts of the older characters are, it’s a pity that the parts of Wynn and Aaron are so underwritten. Annie Lockerbie Newton well brings out the increasing distress in Wynn’s phone calls with Jane. Wynn even has to go to emergency because of a mysterious pain in her abdomen. But Daum neglects to tell us what the source of the pain turns out to be or how serious it is. Aaron is clearly meant to be the version of Tom that Tom wished he could have been. Aaron’s one phone call with Tom is a fine example of a father and son trying to communicate without saying anything. Yet, we do wish we could know more about both Aaron and Wynn and how Tom’s diagnosis affects them.

Director Peter Pasyk deserves credit for keeping the action moving at a pace that matches Jane’s perception of events. Louise Guinand’s lighting not only clarifies where we are but enhances the moods from joyful to disturbed that the characters experience. Daum may give the minutiae of early-onset Alzheimer’s and its treatment too much prominence. Yet the strength of the play lies in how Tom and Jane try to adjust to such a profound change in their lives and to see whether any of the happiness they previously have known will survive.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Raquel Duffy as Jane and Kevin Bundy as Wayne; Geoffrey Pounsett as Tom. © 2025 Ann Baggley.

For tickets visit: www.herefornowtheatre.com.