THEATRE REVIEW:
SOMEONE ELSE


JOHN COULBOURN,
Special to TorSun
12 JAN 2013
R: 4/5


Pictured: Kristen Thomson, Tom Rooney

If one accepts the premise that good theatre reflects life while great theatre illuminates it, then Kristen Thomson's SOMEONE ELSE is good theatre indeed. For while the latest rough-hewn work from creator of I, Claudia certainly flirts with greatness, it somehow always manages to stop just shy of it, despite the impressive talent and commitment everyone brings to the project. SOMEONE ELSE opened in Canadian Stage's Berkeley Street Theatre, a production of Crow's Theatre in association with CanStage.

SOMEONE ELSE is a play about the marriage of Peter (played by Tom Rooney) and Cathy (played by Thomson herself) — a marriage that, after 18 years, would seem to be as moribund as Cathy's stalled career as a stand-up comic. As the couple prepares to celebrate their porcelain anniversary, all they have to show for their time together is their rapidly maturing daughter Vanessa, a rather ghostly presence played by Nina Taylor, and a marriage built more, it seems, on rote and repetition than on romance.

Despite their desultory efforts at rehabilitating that troubled marriage, Peter finds himself oddly attracted to April (Bahia Watson), a disturbed and disturbing young habitué of the community clinic where Peter practices medicine. Cathy suspects the attraction reflects a sexual mid-life crisis, and while there are certainly elements of that, it is, in fact, something far more complex. When April attempts suicide, the attendant crisis begins a downward spiral that threatens to wipe out their life together.

In staging a work that as often as not seems to be carved with a chainsaw as opposed to a chisel, director Chris Abraham quite wisely doesn't try to smooth its edges, instead conspiring with designers Julie Fox (sets and costumes) and Kimberly Purtell (lighting) to accentuate those rough edges. The chaos and the disorder of the lives SOMEONE ELSE examines is reflected in the way detritus from one scene spills over into the next and characters haunt scenes in which they are not involved. And while Thomas Ryder Payne's sound design reflects the same studiedly harsh and chaotic approach, sadly, it too often overwhelms the dialogue.

And in a production such as this, every word counts, as a hugely committed cast, bolstered by Damien Atkins in a riveting cameo, battles its way through the dense and unruly emotions on which the play is built. And in the end, this proves to be far more of a no-holds-barred street fight than anything ever imagined by the Marquis of Queensbury, but it is the courage and commitment, with which that battle is joined, that carries the day. Rooney threatens to quite literally cut to the bone in his attempt to find the heart of his character, while Thomson and Watson fill their performances with the kind of subtle autobiographical detail that make a committed audience feel almost voyeuristic. SOMEONE ELSE may not be a great play, but when a good play is staged with this kind of passion and courage, it can come mighty close.