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by Noah Haidle, directed by Mitchell Cushman

Outside the March, Holy Family Catholic School, 141 Close Ave., Toronto

July 17-28, 2012

“What Happens When Your Imaginary Friend Has No Time For You?”

Mr. Marmalade, a hit at SummerWorks 2011, returns in a vibrant remount.  It brings with it American playwright Noah Haidle’s discomfiting mix of innocence and corruption heightened by director Mitchell Cushman’s decision to stage it in a real kindergarden schoolroom.  Society still cherishes the notion of childhood innocence, but parents, unwilling to compromise their own pursuit of pleasure, increasingly abdicate their responsibility to educate and protect their children and leave that job to schools.  Haidle suggests that for pre-schoolers, like the central character of his play, constantly being left alone to fend for themselves has already had negative consequences.

The audience meets at a ticket booth in the form of a lemonade stand in front of the Holy Family Catholic School on 141 Close Avenue.  There our genial, unflappable Audience Guide (Julie Tepperman) meets us, tells us the rules and invites us to explore the space before the play starts.  The “kinderroom” is really two rooms connected on either side of a large rectangular pillar.  We are meant to follow the actors as they move about the space.  In examining the room, first we are charmed by the tiny chairs and tables and all the toys and art projects, but if we look closer we will see that Dana Buchbinder’s decoration of the site has some disturbing notes.  In the list of “Words Starting with L” we find “lude” and in the list of “Words Starting with Z” we find “zoloft”, already suggesting that parents’ habits have made an impression of their children’s minds.  Buchbinder has left many other such ingenious clues around the rooms.

Each scene of the play begins with the Audience Guide calmly reading us a chapter from a giant-sized children’s book.  In the first scene we discover four-year-old Lucy (Amy Keating) playing with her Barbie and Ken dolls.  It’s their wedding night but Ken is verbally and sexually abusing Barbie and ends up locking her in a cage.  Suddenly Lucy’s dapper imaginary friend Mr. Marmalade (Philip Riccio) appears and asks Lucy to make him coffee.  Since Lucy deliberately disobeys his instructions, we sense all is not well between them.  As it transpires, Lucy has the misfortune, comically and sadly, to have an imaginary friend who doesn’t have enough time in his schedule to be with her.  He promises to make it up to her with a trip to Mexico, but then has to leave to go off to a meeting.             

In the course of the action we meet Lucy’s slutty divorced mother Sooky (Katherine Cullen), who goes off for some fun and leaves Lucy in the hands of her least-favourite baby-sitter Emily (also Cullen), a terminally bored teenager who is more interested in her Blackberry than in engaging with Lucy.  Emily’s loutish boyfriend George (Jason Chinn) turns up with Larry (Ishai Buchbinder), his five-year-old brother he is supposed to be taking care of.  While Emily and George go upstairs to make out, Lucy gets to know the extremely shy Larry, whose forearms are bandaged from a suicide attempt.  While he’s rather proud that he may be the youngest person in New Jersey ever to attempted suicide, he explains that “if this is the carefree part of my life, then I don’t want to see the part of my life that’s supposed to be hard.”

We also meet Mr. Marmalade’s personal assistant Bradley (Sebastien Heins), who Mr. Marmalade periodically beats up when displeased, and even Larry’s two imaginary friends (Jason Chinn and Katherine Cullen), who happen to be continually arguing conjoined plants.  Lucy’s mother even brings home her sheepish “date” Bob (Jason Chinn) to spend the night. 

As the product of two broken homes left in the care of irresponsible minders it’s no wonder that Lucy and Larry’s play-acting revolves around sex, violence and argument.  The drunken, drug-addicted Mr. Marmalade’s erratic behaviour is likely a reflection of that of Lucy’s absent father.  His abuse of Bradley may represent her subconscious awareness of his repellent side.  The only hopeful sign is that Lucy and Larry are kindred spirits and may have found in each other a real friend to displace their imaginary ones.

After seeing Mr. Marmalade in this site-specific production, it’s hard to believe the play could ever be as successful in a standard theatre.  Not only are we inches away from the performers, but the atmosphere of the kindergarten rooms so full of children’s hope and unfettered imagination makes an all-too-painful contrast with the lives of Lucy and Larry, who try to carry on without hope, and whose imaginations have already been chained down by disturbing experiences.  Designers Jon Grosz and Dana Buchbinder have made the rooms look completely normal even though they are almost entirely made up of elements that Cushman will use.  Cushman masterfully moves the action from room to room, effects several magical character appearances and scenes changes and draws emotionally intense performances from the actors. 

The entire troupe is well-cast, but it is hard to imagine anyone playing the stern but delicate little Lucy any better than Keating.  She manages to play a child without using any of the cloying tricks adults actors employ when playing children.  She is completely fresh, believable and sympathetic.  I did not see the SummerWorks production and David Storch as Mr. Marmalade, but Philip Riccio is an excellent choice.  He still has a boyish air, like something a young girl might imagine, but he is able to communicate an ambiguity of attitude that seems both childish and menacingly adult.  Buchbinder is completely believable as the awkward, nerdy Larry, who can’t hide the insecurity grown from an unhappy life.  Heins is so attractive as Bradley, we almost think Mr. Marmalade treats him badly because of it.  Heins exudes an unequivocal warmth and it’s a pleasure that the script also requires him to sing.

If there is a flaw with the play it’s that it seems overlong.  Its fifth scene of the reconciliation and break-up of Lucy and Mr. Marmalade repeats a pattern of strife that Haidle has already made clear several times before.  The fact that Lucy should initiate a break with Mr. Marmalade the first time is much more important than his walking out on her the second time.  It is always difficult in a site-specific show, but the one thing Cushman should arrange is a curtain call for the whole cast.  As it is, Heins is the only one left inside and has to receive the applause for everyone. He or the Guide merely needs to lead us outside where the cast could be assembled and they could all receive the applause they deserve.

Mr. Marmalade is a most rewarding and imaginative journey into the mind of a four-year-old.  It should make adults think more carefully about how their behaviour and that of people they know can affect children too young to understand it.  The play is also a plea to adults to pay more attention to what children say and do since they often have few outlets available to them to express what troubles them.  Though the lack of air-conditioning may make the chosen site physically uncomfortable, what should make us morally even more uncomfortable is the realization of how adult irresponsibility has made so many children’s carefree years unhappy.       

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Amy Keating and Ishai Buchbinder. ©2011 Outside the March.

For tickets, visit www.artsboxoffice.ca/scripts/max/2000/maxweb.exe.