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by Philip Ridley, directed by John Shooter

Precisely Peter Productions, Dirty Talk, 167 Augusta Ave., Toronto

March 2-19, 2017

“Enough Is Never Enough”

In the past ten years Toronto has seen a number of British plays set in the present of a post-apocalyptic future depicting a bleak view of human relations not merely unaided but exacerbated by religion or government.  Often labelled “in-yer-face”, some of these include Pomona (2014) by Alistair McDowall, pool (no water) (2006) by Mark Ravenhill, Brimstone and Treacle (1977) by Dennis Potter, The Skriker (1994) by Caryl Churchill, PIG (2013) by Tim Luscombe, The Pitchfork Disney (1991) and Mercury Fur (2005) by Philip Ridley and, of course, Sarah Kane’s Blasted (1995), Crave (1998) and 4.48 Psychosis (2000), which could be said to be the movement’s defining works.

John Shooter’s Precise Peter Productions have presented two of these plays –  Brimstone and Treacle in 2015 and The Pitchfork Disney just last year.  This year Shooter has chosen Philip Ridley’s Radiant Vermin from 2015, Ridley’s first-ever comedy and the play’s Toronto premiere.   It’s a shrewd metaphorical satire in which we watch a seemingly likeable, ordinary couple casually drift into mass murder to achieve the home of their dreams.  Shooter and his well-chosen cast give the play a fine production that will make you cringe and grin in equal measure.  

Ridley’s conceit is that a young couple, Ollie (Jonas Widdifield) and Jill Swift (Julie Tepperman), have gathered us together to tell us about all the horrible things they did to get the house of their dreams.  Why they should want to tell these things only become clear at the end.  Both, impelled by a kind of nervous energy, they tell us how while living in a crime-ridden housing estate they received a letter out of the blue from a Miss Dee (Marium Carvell), promising them a free house.  Ollie is sceptical about the idea, but Jill, pregnant with their first child, insists they see the house since she wants her baby to grow up in better surroundings. 

It happens that the house in question is one of several abandoned houses near a disused car factory in an isolated part of town where groups of homeless people gather.  The house will require massive renovations to be liveable and there’s no hot water or electricity.  Miss Dee turn out to a friendly, genial person who seems to have an unusually detailed knowledge of the lives of both Ollie and Jill.  She says she has chosen them for a civic renewal scheme run by the city.  If Ollie and Jill can renovate their house successfully, it will encourage other people to move to the area.  Though still doubtful about something that seems too good to be true, Ollie eventually gives in to Jill’s desire for a proper house for their baby and both sign Miss Dee’s contract. 

Luckily, Ollie is quite handy and a fan of DIY repairs and manages to get the wiring redone on his own.  One night the couple are awakened by a prowler.  As Ollie suspects, it is one of the homeless who has invaded their kitchen searching for food.  Although Ollie is angry enough to kill him, the intruder dies accidentally.  To their amazement, the couple discover that not only does the intruder’s body vanish, but the kitchen has been totally transformed, in fact, renovated to exactly the kind of kitchen Jill has dreamt of.  Ollie’s killing of another homeless invader renovates the exterior of the house and adjoining objects. 

Soon Ollie and Jill Swift find themselves in a similar predicament as the Macbeths just before they learn that King Duncan will be staying the night.  The Swifts see that some supernatural power has made their unique form of home renovation possible.  The question is, “Should they allow this to happen by chance or should they take an active part in when and where homeless people die inside the house to achieve the right effect more efficiently?”  Like the Macbeths, the Swifts decide that they should take an active part in events to make sure they happen right.  A consistent substratum of humour in Radiant Vermin is the

disparity in goal between the Macbeths, who at least aspire to the crown and obeisance of others while the modern self-obsessed suburban Swifts can only think of improving their house and impressing themselves with their accomplishments. 

Besides the increasingly outrageous deeds the Swifts undertake, a second level of humour in the play is its metatheatrical irony.  Ollie and Jill tell us their tale with the expectation that once we know all the circumstances we will understand why they did what they did.  At the same time they are completely unaware that they are telling a metaphorical story about how rampant consumerism directly leads to a justification of social inequality.  While the Swifts claim to be doing all their renovations for the baby, their concern for other human life drops to nil.  the more the couple pleads for our understanding, the more ignorant they appear of the meaning of their own story. 

Widdifield and Tepperman are well cast as Ollie and Jill, but, likely due to the grotesque nature of the story, the two do tend to try too hard initially to make their story seem funny.  The story would, in fact, be funnier if they were to tell it in a completely serious way without seeming to worry so much about how we might judge them. 

Nevertheless, they both are still amusing.  Widdifield is hilarious in showing how Ollie wrestles quite ineffectually with his scepticism and moral scruples. Widdifield is also adept at physical comedy and performs fantastic recreations of Ollie’s struggles to the death with unseen assailants.  As with Widdifield’s Ollie, Tepperman shows with delightful subtlety how the extremely squeamish Jill gradually loses that defining quality when the possibility of getting the look of a room just right lies just a few murders away. 

The play builds to an extraordinary tour de force for the two actors who have to play not only Ollie and Jill, but three other couples plus one couples’ two teenaged children all attending the Swifts’ son’s first birthday party.  Widdifield and Tepperman do a fantastic job in keeping all five of their characters absolutely distinct even during the rapid exchanges among them all.  The sheer virtuosity on display in this scene alone makes this a must-see for all lovers of theatre.

Marium Carvell is a fine choice for the seemingly warm-hearted Miss Dee since she never gives away for one moment that this mysterious figure may have ulterior motives.  Carvell also plays another character who is so distinct from Miss Dee that you can hardly imagine the same actor plays both.  This second character appears in only one scene, but in that scene Carvell endows her role with such innocence and humanity that her actions only serve to emphasize how deeply perverted the “ordinary” Swifts have become. 

Set designer Victoria Ius has built a bright all-white set in the basement of a shop called Dirty Talk in Kensington market.  At the back of the playing area she has placed a cut-out of the Swifts’ dream house that cleverly can define the playing area in front of it as an interior or exterior depending on how the actors enter the space. 

Director John Shooter is acutely aware of the various levels of humour and horror in the story and how they relate to each other.  He is also masterfully brings out in Widdifield and Tepperman’s performances the mixture of naïveté and self-delusion that makes them so fascinating and their abhorrent behaviour so comic. 

It is odd that when Radiant Vermin premiered that London critics thought it was primarily a satire of the tight housing market in the city.  Ridley dispels such a narrow interpretation when we learn that the motto of the new mall near the Swift’s house is “Enough Is Never Enough” – a clear dig at the amoral culture of consumerism if ever there was one.  Once again we have to thank Precisely Peter Productions for bringing non-West End play to Toronto to alert us to what the most creative minds across the pond are up to.  After Radiant Vermin you won’t be able to look at Architectural Digest or House Beautiful again without a wicked smile.        

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photos: (from top) Jonas Widdifield as Ollie, Marium Carvell as Miss Dee and Julie Tepperman as Jill; Jonas Widdifield and Julie Tepperman. ©2017 Maylynn Quan.

For tickets, visit www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2854197.