>>REVIEW
A LIFE IN THE THEATRE
Sage Theatre
Runs until April 1 (Pumphouse Theatres)
David Mamet’s A Life in the Theatre sets out to expose the guts of the theatre and the essential humanity of its actors both on stage and off. In Sage Theatre’s current remounting, the audience is invited into this world as they walk to their seats through the backstage of the Joyce Doolittle Theatre, literally seeing its hidden workings in the form of the Pumphouse’s massive, eponymous pump.
Where Mamet illustrates the humanity of the theatre through a backstage glimpse at its human creators, another actor-playwright famously asked, through the character of Shylock, "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" Unfortunately, actors may be as human as the rest of us, but they are also subject to mistakes and inadequacies. When that happens, equally human and flawed critics must be that prick, panning a production like Sage’s.
Honestly speaking from behind the page: I don’t enjoy the process any more than they do.
Robert and John, two actors in very different stages of their lives, begin a relationship backstage that changes as each actor moves into a new chapter of his life. Played by Steven Hair and Joel Smith (respectively), Calgary actors whose relative age and experience make their roles essential mirrors of their own lives, Robert and John’s interaction oscillates between the dressing room and the stage as the older Robert attempts to pass on his knowledge to the up-and-coming John. As time progresses, so does their relationship, moving beyond reflexive imitation as Robert’s mistakes mount in nearly direct proportion to John’s success.
Culminating in a final, summarizing epilogue on a life spent in the theatre, contrasted with the promise of John’s continuing career, the play is a meditation on more than theatre, but on the transitory nature of any relationship between one person with room to grow and one without anywhere left to go.
In the confined space of the Joyce Doolittle, the action onstage is literally inches away from the audience, affording an intimacy that, with the correct performance, could genuinely endear the struggles of these two actors. Unfortunately, neither Hair nor Smith offer performances nuanced enough to satisfy this almost cinematic focus. Best known for his recurring role as Ebenezer Scrooge in Theatre Calgary’s A Christmas Carol, Hair’s is a heavily theatrical presence well suited to Robert’s didactic, often rambling lessons, but unable to convey the subtle breaking of a man who is seeing his would-be protege ascending without his assistance. Conversely, Smith’s often flat delivery fails to show the subtle progression from adoration to pity, leaping at those obvious opportunities Mamet’s script affords him, but maintaining an un-emotive expression between.
Of course, as the most invisible presence on the stage, even more ethereal than the backstage lives of a show’s actors, director Martin Fishman absorbs no small amount of blame for the play’s inadequacies. While he has managed to bring out, in the first act, the refreshing rhythm for which Mamet’s dialogue is known, the show’s shallow staging (literally) – there are scarcely two metres between the first row and the backdrop – is a competent but limp movement from stage left, to right, to centre, broken only by the metatheatrics of Robert and John’s "onstage" performances. The collective result is a play that tells more than it shows, rendering Robert’s final bittersweet conclusion without enough emotional resonance to be considered a conclusion at all.
Despite its weaknesses, a production in which the cast has invested so much effort deserves mentions of its successes. The first dialogue between Robert and John, a set of cloying compliments coupled with catty criticism of their fellow actors, is bitingly satirical, with Hair and Smith ably riding the staccato pulse of Mamet’s dialogue. (A)’s set design is a clever nod to the idea of the stage’s machinery, and theatergoers familiar with the Pumphouse might consider attending the production merely to see the theatre’s familiar face transformed. And A Life in the Theatre affords the rare privilege of noting the able, albeit silent, performance of assistant stage manager (B), who in any other production would remain in the wings wearing theatre blacks.
The driving truth of A Life in the Theatre is that every stage is filled with actors who are far more than their characters, who move along and feel pain just as we all do. I don’t enjoy inflicting pain on another person, just as Mamet’s play illustrates: theatre is not a forgiving discipline. For better or for worse, when a play fails to satisfy, all-too human critics must be blunt –pricks though we may be. |
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