Review
BOY GETS GIRL
Theatre Junction
Starring Elinor Holt, Jim Leyden, Valerie Planche and Tim Koetting
Written by Rebecca Gilman
Directed by Kevin McKendrick
Runs until December 13
Dr. Betty Mitchell Theatre (Jubilee Auditorium)
If you’re looking for a terrific play to see before December 13, make a beeline for Theatre Junction’s Boy Gets Girl.
This production of Rebecca Gilman’s urban thriller is everything it should be – subtle, smart, skilfully acted and aimed as much at your grey cells as your dorsal hairs. It does full justice to Gilman’s chilling but credible tale of criminal harassment – a drama that is to lurid stalker fare like Fatal Attraction what Joyce Carol Oates is to Stephen King.
While Gilman provides some icy moments of fear, her main concern is exposing the psychological toll exacted by a stalker on his victim. As Theresa Bedell, a Manhattan magazine writer who finds herself harassed with growing aggression by Tony, a guy she met on a blind date, a fragile-looking Elinor Holt moves from brittle anger to near-hysteria to a climactic outburst of impotent rage as she watches her life being wrecked, while we, like her colleagues, can only look on with an awkward mix of pity and helplessness.
Her editor, a gentle older man (Jim Leyden, effectively cast agaist type), does what he can to protect her but is really at a loss, while her sensitive fellow writer – played with a self-lacerating earnestness by Duncan Ollerenshaw – is too busy being consumed by his own disgust, as if he were personally responsible for the bad behaviour of his sex. And the young girl in the office (a perky Adrienne Smook) just doesn’t get it, suggesting Theresa should be flattered by Tony’s attention. "He’s cute," she burbles innocently.
Only the police officer on the case (a gruff but kindly Valerie Planche, sporting a native New Yorker’s accent) has any practical advice, but her well-meaning honesty about the chances of catching and charging Tony is not very reassuring.
Gilman artfully removes the stalker as a physical presence before the end of the first act, so that he remains only as a disembodied menace – a voice heard on Theresa’s answering machine, or read in viciously obscene letters. But in his short time on stage, Ryan Luhning’s eager, friendly Tony reminds us that a troubled mind can hide behind the most innocuous exterior.
Kevin McKendrick’s direction is especially good at illuminating the play’s dark comedy and Tim Koetting gives a beautifully crafted portrayal as the funniest character, an elderly soft-porn filmmaker with an unabashed breast fetish that Theresa must reluctantly interview. Shuffling about in an out-of-date leisure suit, waxing lyrical about "colossal tits" in a creaky old-man’s voice, the hilarious Koetting turns this Russ Meyer type into a kind of sleazy grandfather, while at the same time suggesting the sadness and frailty behind his porn-king bravado.
Terry Gunvordahl’s cold-blue décor, made up of multi-purpose set pieces, and his fragmented lighting emphasize the detached urban landscape in which Gilman’s characters live, barely knowing one another, while Peter Moller’s steely score, pierced by sharp thrusts from Johnathan Lewis’s violin, furthers the sense of alienation. It all adds up to a quietly powerful show that leaves you with much to talk about. |
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