>>REVIEW
DIG
Ghost River Theatre
Runs until May 7
Vertigo Studio (Tower Centre)
Dig begins with a delicious premise: a woman arrives at an archeological site in Northern China – the dig she’s been preparing for her whole life – to find that the person she’ll be working with is someone she hasn’t seen in a decade. Someone she happens to hate.
Caroline Cave plays the woman, Hannah, a passionate young archeologist whose life’s work has been one great leap of faith – a stubborn belief in the existence of the elusive Hsia dynasty. The man she’s so unhappy to see is Stuart (Jovanni Sy), an archeologist of partial Chinese descent who can barely speak or read a word of that language. They are led – or rather, supported – by Parker (Charlie Tomlinson), the wise but weary mentor who’s been set badly adrift by the death of his wife.
The ostensible reason for Hannah’s rage is quickly revealed: on another, long-ago dig, Stuart not only "fenced" (sold for profit) a recovered artifact, but left the other two archeologists in the lurch and disappeared. This is but a surface scratch, however, and Glenda Stirling’s script skilfully uncovers the whole truth, layer by painstaking layer. Not only is there more behind Hannah’s anger, but Stuart’s actions were not as simple and as self-serving as they seemed.
It’s rich material, and some of the philosophical arguments between Hannah and Stuart succeed in making abstract intellectual concepts compelling. A debate, for example, on whether artifacts belong in tourist-sustained museums (Hannah) or with private owners culturally connected to their provenance (Stuart) takes a complicated conundrum and puts flesh on its bones. So, too, do discussions of their very different reasons for digging: she’s looking for grace; he, ever the pragmatist, simply for proof of life. Abstract as they are, these passages have dramatic truth: these are exactly the kind of conversations two such people would have. Too often, however, the script baldly states its themes rather than illustrating them. So we find Parker musing alone, in full declamatory mode: "How heavy is the weight of history? How do you quantify a life? Do the dead dream?"
Taken alone, these could be comfortably called the in-character soliloquies of a thoughtful, dying old man. But the play is so bogged down by its own metaphors that, before long, it gets buried by them. Stirling shows a great deal of careful artistry with her dialogue, often having words spoken by one character (such as the central paradox of archeology as a "science of faith") echoed later by others. Such a device shows deep, unexpected commonalities, which I like, but serves, too, as an elbow in the ribs of the audience, which I don’t. For a play so preoccupied with faith, Dig seems to have remarkably little of it in us. We are banged over the head with so many digging metaphors that by the time the play’s over, we, too, feel like we’re six feet under. As anyone who writes about this play (me included) proves, these metaphors are almost impossible to resist. But the fatal flaw here is that Dig makes a metaphor – all understanding requires excavation – not only its point of departure but its endpoint, as well. Where, exactly, have we travelled?
Dig is a mere 80 minutes long. Perhaps, with some expansion, its elements could transcend their current display-case feel. Stuart’s clandestine political activities are now little more than a key to his character. Hannah’s fascination with the Hsia as a link between myth and history is given only a cursory explanation. And the conflicts need stronger branches in the present. The characters rant at each other, sure, but rarely do we wonder what they’ll do next. A scene in which Hannah rifles through the absent Stuart’s bag is as close as we get to a power struggle in anything but words.
The production, meanwhile, is strong. Director Vanessa Porteous imbues the low-key proceedings with a constant physicality. Terry Gunvordhal’s minimalist set consists of sand-filled boxes of various sizes, and the actors use the sand to express everything from joy to despondency to deviousness, all with a welcome absence of words. Heather Moore’s meticulous costume design and Peter Moller’s evocative soundscape contribute to the sensuous feeling of a place apart. And the fluency of Stirling’s writing itself – a beautiful evocation of the creation myth of the Hsia is a standout – is matched by the actors’ ability to articulate it. There’s some good chemistry among them, too, particularly when the play allows itself to have a sense of humour. A scene in which Stuart and Hannah trade teasing, rapid-fire reminscences of their grad-school days is a delight.
Two weeks ago in this paper, Porteous was quoted as saying that "new plays don’t get finished, they just get opened." Dig deserves continued life. It needs to get over the cleverness of its symbolism and let the story on the stage take on a little more unmetaphorical flesh. |
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