Review
ILLEGAL ENTRY
Ground Zero Theatre & the University of Calgary
Starring Phil Fulton, Braden Griffiths and Nathan Pronyshyn
Written by Clem Martini
Directed by Duval Lang
Runs until September 11
Reeve Theatre (U of C)
Déjà vu, man. Last year at this time, Ground Zero Theatre and the University of Calgary launched a new theatre season with David Mamet’s American Buffalo. This year they do the same with Clem Martini’s Illegal Entry, which is a bit like American Buffalo, the junior edition. Or maybe a Reservoir Dogs with young offenders – call it Reservoir Puppies.
Which is not to say that Martini’s 1995 play (first seen at that year’s playRites festival) is simply another variation on the dumb-criminal and bungled-caper themes. Martini’s inspiration for this drama about three young punks in a big mess grew out of his years of volunteer work at Wood’s Homes, where he has observed firsthand how kids like Jim, Stewart and Garland wind up in trouble. Still, the play follows familiar patterns, starting with the characters. There’s a smart, articulate "brains of the operation" – Garland (Nathan Pronyshyn); a crazy, unpredictable one – Jim (Phil Fulton); and the quiet guy with a dark secret – Stewart (Braden Griffiths).
The three have gone AWOL from their group home one night to commit what is, in their naive minds, the perfect crime: they plan to break into and burgle a suburban house, entering via the attached garage thanks to the garage door opener, which Jim has swiped.
But once they’re in the garage, things start to go wrong. The connecting door to the house turns out to be steel and double-bolted, and Jim foolishly smashes the garage door’s sensor in a wild fit of frustration, trapping them inside. With no other tools at hand save a pair of electric belt sanders, Stewart and Garland proceed to try and sand a hole through the wall, while the restless Jim spends the time goofing off and distracting them.
This gives Martini the opportunity to provide glimpses of their pasts and their aspirations. Garland, a former prostitute and the most educated of the three, wants to run off to Vancouver, make a fresh start and get into the movie biz, accompanied by Stewart, who has become his lover. Jim – like all of them, a victim of incest and abuse – wants to tag along, but his volatile personality clashes with Garland’s level-headedness. Both boys possess violent streaks, but in the end it may be the enigmatic Stewart who is the scariest of them all.
Fulton, who co-starred as the junkie kid in American Buffalo, turns in the most impressive performance as the best-written character – the aimless, reckless, paint-thinner-snorting Jim. At times he comes across as nothing more threatening than an overgrown brat, a hyperactive teenage boy off his Ritalin, pathetically seeking attention and outrageously accident-prone. As played by Fulton, he’s both annoying and amusing comic relief. But Jim is not as simple as he seems and, just when Garland and the audience are ready to dismiss him, Martini and Fulton show us his frightening potential as a future sociopath. Think of Joe Pesci’s character from GoodFellas in embryo.
Pronyshyn is less convincing as Garland, in part because Martini hasn’t given him a credible voice. When he speaks, he often sounds like the playwright’s mouthpiece, repeatedly explaining how therapy has helped him. Griffiths’ Stewart, meanwhile, remains low-key even during his big revelatory scene, conveying little sense of the mental anguish and powder-keg personality lurking behind his grimly stoic demeanour.
But all three actors are a believable bunch of would-be toughs, smoking and swearing and talking big when together, sneaky and panicky when alone. Duval Lang directs the 90-minute piece with a head-banging, gut-kicking realism, aided by Tony Eyamie’s fight choreography and an authentic-looking garage set, designed by Ian Kelly and Douglas McCullough and lit by J. James Andrews. And sound designer Luke Dahlgren boosts the show’s adrenalin with periodic explosions of metal (including, when the guys start sanding through the wall, Metallica’s "Enter Sandman" – ha, ha).
Alongside his many adult works, Martini has also written his share of plays for young audiences and sometimes Illegal Entry feels like one of the latter – a didactic show for teens, but with four-letter words. In its strongest moments, however, this play offers a chillingly accurate rendering of some sad, fucked-up boys, teetering perilously on the verge of becoming dangerous men. |
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