Review
THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD
Theatre Junction
Starring Elana McMurtry, Mack Fyfe and Jim Dobbin
Directed by Nikki Loach
Written by John Millington Synge
Runs until May 3
Dr. Betty Mitchell Theatre
There are theatre companies who dare to be great and wind up producing terrible shows – and that’s noble. Then there are theatre companies who are terrible by nature but occasional surprise us with greatness – that, too, is noble. But when you’re a better than average theatre company, you should never end your season with mediocrity.
Unfortunately, Theatre Junction has ended their 2002-03 season with a forgettable whimper. The Playboy of the Western World – a lyrical, brutal, poetic drama set in turn-of-the-20th century Ireland – is J.M. Synge’s masterpiece. But just because it is his masterpiece does not mean it is a masterpiece. Synge is no George Bernard Shaw, and the choice of Synge’s play is an insurmountable obstacle as Theatre Junction’s final production.
To begin with, the play is irrelevant for our time and place. Nothing in the play speaks to audiences in present-day Canada. It is only accessible to those who’ve lived in a land as wounded and wounding as poverty-stricken Ireland. There are certainly some in Canada who have access to this sort of abusive, hopeless existence, but they aren’t going to Theatre Junction, making The Playboy of the Western World an inescapably poor choice for the finale. And this is a mistake that must fall squarely on the shoulders of Mark Lawes, Theatre Junction’s official leader, and Nikki Loach, their interim artistic director.
But this problem might have been overcome if the actors had captured Synge’s poetry. The Playboy of the Western World’s social irrelevance could have been submerged in the simple beauty of its language. But only three actors out of an ensemble of 14 – Jim Leyden (Jimmy Farrell), Duval Lang (Old Mahon) and Peter Strand Rumpel (Philly Cullen) – manage to capture the spirit of Synge’s words with any regularity. None of the actors do a particularly bad job, but missing the lyricism of the language ensures that the show is describable in one word: boring.
It’s hard to care about these downtrodden, often despicable, always unsavory characters. Few of the actors generate sympathy for the characters they play, including leads Mac Fyfe (Christy Mahon) and Elana McMurtry (Pegeen Mike) –Fyfe doesn’t win our allegiance for his abused and murderous pot-boy, and McMurtry doesn’t make us sit up and take notice of her fiery shebeen wench. All we’re left thinking is "who cares?" And that’s a question the audience should never be asking themselves.
There are some artistic flourishes to be found in Loach’s direction, to be sure. There is an abundance of cyclorama silhouettes and the set is a strange cupboard-closet wherein every door leads to the outside. But the conventionality of these choices, interesting as they may be, does nothing to lift the production out of its mediocrity.
The Playboy of the Western World is neither good nor bad – it just is. And this is sad evidence of Theatre Junction’s fundamental problem as a company, which is its failure to take risks. So long as they take the middle ground and continue to produce quality theatre, they will remain a middling company and excellence will elude them.
But there is always hope for next season. |
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