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by Michael Healey, directed by Leah Cherniak

Tarragon Theatre, Tarragon Theatre Mainspace, Toronto

January 23-April 4, 2004

Unlike his massive hit, The Drawer Boy, Michael Healey’s latest play, Rune Arlidge, is as rambling, structurally flawed and overgrown as the cottage porch where it is set.  Yet, it is also an ambitious work about humanity and fate that slyly has you laughing till the end when you suddenly realize it has not been a comedy at all but a tragedy.

Charlotte Dean has designed the impressively realistic cottage where the action unfolds over a 25 years.  Caustically gaga Frances Arlidge (Fiona Reid), who claims to have lost her maternal instincts in a car crash, is hated by both her daughters Rune (a searingly intense Jane Spidell) and comic nihilist Michelle (Julie Stewart) for her complete lack of empathy, made worse now that she obsessively relates stories of the past.  Rune’s self-esteem is so low she thinks she is “nothing”.  Michelle seems intent on self-destruction through drugs, promiscuity and alcohol.  As we move forward in time, we see that Rune and Michelle are fated to become just like the ruin of a mother they detested. 

That we become our parents is hardly a new theme, but Healey sets out to ask why.  Do we hate what we subconsciously see as our future?  Why, in trying to escape it do we rush headlong into it?  This is  the focus in Act 1 and 3, but Act 2 merely marks time and with the character of Harvar (Ari Cohen), Rune’s highly implausible boyfriend, the tone shifts from foul-mouthed Canadian Chekhov to gross-out Fox sitcom.  Besides this, more than merely a chance visit by Rune’s former boyfriend (Rick Roberts) should precipitate the dénouement.

Still, Healey has written fascinating characters and director Leah Cherniak has drawn superb performances from the entire cast.  Let’s hope Healey gets out the pruning shears to find the finer, tauter play half-hidden in the current script’s overgrowth.  

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2004-04-11.

Photo: Jane Spidell, Rick Roberts, Fiona Reid and Julie Stewart. ©2004 Cylla Von Tiedemann.