Reviews 2002
Reviews 2002
✭✭✭✭✩
by George F. Walker, directed by Angela Finlay
Alumnae Theatre, Toronto
September 27-October 12, 2002
"In Touch with the Simple Ugly Truth"
The 2002-03 season at the Alumnae Theatre has been dubbed "Men on Women" since all four plays by male authors deal with strong female characters. The first offering in this series is "Beautiful City" by George F. Walker. The play's last professional production is Toronto was its première in 1987. Despite a flawed design and an uneven cast, Walker's legions of fans will be pleased to see this rarely produced work.
Those unfamiliar with "Beautiful City", part of a trilogy of East End comedies, can rest assured that the play displays Walker's typical offbeat humour and quirky plot. As usual the plot is driven a left-wing thesis, here a sort of Robin Hood economics. Two-dimensional characters are sketched in broad strokes and do not change in the course of the action. And the profanity-riddled language forgoes subtlety and nuance to paint issues as black or white.
What makes this play different from the usual Walker is that it is clearly meant as a fairy tale complete with a witch. That alone makes Walker focus on plot over character more palatable. Here the bad guys are the mob-supported developer Tony Raft and his mother Mary. Tony is on the verge of floating a series of new condos when his chief architect Paul Gallagher suffers a crippling pain in his side of unknown origin. While in hospital Paul meets the daughter of a (good) witch who recommends him to her mother, Gina Mae, who works enthusiastically at Bargain Harold's discount department store. Paul gets better under Gina Mae's care, but soon the mob is after Gina Mae's brother-in-law for selling "family" goods and looking for Paul to get the condo presentation suite remodelled.
As usual Walker equates wealth with evil (the Raft family) and poverty with good (Gina Mae's family). He suggests that wealth makes people sick because it insulates them from life (Tony wants a life without strangers) and that poverty makes people well because it puts people back in touch with life, or as Gina Mae puts it, the "simple ugly truth". The flaw in the thinking is that Walker wants to present Gina Mae's present way of life both as ameliorative as it is (as in Paul's recovery) and as requiring improvement. Otherwise, why would he have Gina Mae demand millions of dollars from the Rafts for facilities for the poor? Walker's idealization of poverty works contrary to his demand for redistributing wealth. But, as I said, this is a fairy tale.
The main impediment to this production's success is Stewart Vanderlinden's set. Vanderlinden has designed a number of attractive and clever sets for the Alumnae before but this is a case where more could have been done with less. The set consists of two large cubes surfaced to look like the walls of a back alley. Atop one is the office of the Rafts, atop the other a police office used only once. The idea is clearly to the people who work in high-rises from those on the street. One problem is that the plays many scenes constantly shift between the two and every setting up of the "street" scenes, Bargain Harold's or Gina Mae's house require too much effort and disrupts the pace. The other problem for anyone seated in the first four rows will be that the height of the Rafts' office cuts off anything from the feet to the neck of actors playing there. Martyn Wolfman has come up with an excellent mix of urban sounds and appropriate mid-1980s music. Michael V. Spence uses the few Alumnae instruments to create distinctive moods for the rich and the poor with a good explosion and fire in Act 2.
Since Walker's characters are cartoons and express themselves almost entire in multiple exclamation marks, the trick for a director is to encourage a suitable playing style halfway between the realistic and abstract. Angela Finlay's clear direction achieves this admirably. Not all the cast is up to this demand, but those who are give the play an infectious energy.
Chief among these is Tricia Brioux as Gina Mae. She gives Gina Mae a centredness and dignity that all others must bend to in their confusion. She so inhabits her character that it's no stretch to see how this powerful woman can also work happily as a cashier. Chris Owens is excellent as Paul, a man whose moral conflict with his employers has made him ill. He clearly shows us the degrees of Paul's recover and in Act 2 exudes the quiet strength of newfound peace. Showing a talent for physical comedy, Jason Gautreau is hilarious as the small time crook Stevie. His Stevie's mind has been so fried by drugs that his mind and body seem to act independently and he seems to see everything through a haze. Mary Claire Thompson is well cast as the fashionista/police cop, Dian Black, whose aplomb others find so unsettling.
The rest of the cast did not show same degree of command. Zachary Bennett's character, Tony Raft, is a constant state of excitement for the majority of the play, but Bennett doesn't play his anger any differently that his self-congratulation and both at the same pitch. Barbara Larose has the right presence as a gun-toting mob mother but it's obviously a push for her to give Mary the harshness that would suit her actions. Eve Wylden, as Gina Mae's daughter, needs to carry emotions through from one line to the next. Stephen Near, as Paul's brother Michael, is the only cast member to fall back on sitcom-ish reactions. And J. Danlen Moore has certainly captured the look and actions of Stevie hapless father, but I found him difficult to understand.
George F. Walker fans will be pleased have the chance to see this production of one of his less often produced plays. Non-fans will not be converted, but for those curious about Canada's popular writer of political comedies, "Beautiful City", where genre and characterization suit each other, would be a good place to start.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Jason Gautreau and Barbara Larose. ©2002 Alumnae Theatre.
2002-10-01
Beautiful City