Reviews 2006
Reviews 2006
✭✭✭✩✩
by Daniel Brooks with Guillermo Verdecchia, directed by Chris Abraham
Necessary Angel and Theatre Junction, Buddies in Bad Time Theatre, Toronto
November 8-26, 2006
Daniel Brooks’s play Insomnia seems to have fallen asleep since its first performance in 1998 and not awakened to the realities of 2006. Its central character, writer John F. (played by Brooks), meditates on his magnum opus that asks why there is not more violence in the world than there is and is outraged that tobacco companies knowingly lied about their products. Such pre-9/11, pre-Iraq War, pre-Darfur concerns make self-obsessed John F. and the play itself seem bizarrely out of touch and uninvolving.
The show presents one of John’s torturous nights of insomnia in which he replays in varying scenarios his problems with his book, his wife (Fiona Highet), his anxiety over his new daughter and dread of the coming visit of his brother (Randy Hughson) and his narcoleptic wife (Colombe Demers). When John takes a microphone for a long rant about the “27 protocols” to summon the devil, Brooks’s would-be play of ideas instantly devolves into a lecture. It doesn’t help that Brooks’s acting, alone among a fine cast, has only two modes--sullen or strident.
Some people will appreciate the show solely for its sophisticated style. Andrea Lundy’s ultra-precise lighting patterns are stunning and so is Richard Feren’s eerie soundscape and Chris Abraham’s crisp, ritualistic direction. Others, however, will wish the play had content to match.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2006-11-16.
Photo: Daniel Brooks and Fiona Highet. ©2006 Guntar Kravis.
2006-11-16
Insomnia