>>REVIEW
NEVER SWIM ALONE
Go See A Play
Runs until June 18
Studio (Grand Theatre)
Good theatre excels at repeating its stories. Like a human being, theatre remembers the images that are most arresting, frightening or joyful, and it can’t help but revisit them on stage.
Daniel McIvor’s Never Swim Alone may depend on the familiar archetype of men singularly driven toward success and a familiar dread of this obsession, but Go See a Play’s deft treatment is more than enough to breathe life back into the drive for status and power.
It isn’t difficult to envision the driven executive, impeccably dressed and conscious of every expensive stitch – the image is so familiar that it can actually be comic fodder. In McIvor’s play, the layers of this façade are peeled away, event by event, in a literal measuring of two men, Bill (Eric Nyland) and Frank (Ryland Alexander). Presiding over this contest, and occupying a double position in the shared memory of these two men, a referee (Shannon Blanchet) keeps score in a contest that includes height, the success of the son, and even a literal comparison of penis size.
Beginning with an audience glad-handing session, Bill and Frank’s smarmy address to the audience, often delivered chorally, serves as both comic excess and serious meditation. Though at first indistinguishable – black suits, blue socks and all – in the span of less than an hour the two men begin to differentiate their stories, often by exposing each other’s weaknesses and hidden shames. Layering narrative, characterization and often simple farce, the play is a deeply affecting mixture that provokes both laughter and palpable unease.
In the intimate space of The Grand’s Studio Theatre, with a minimalist staging that includes only two folding chairs and a lifeguard’s chair that serves as the referee’s vantage point, the strength of the play rests acutely in the hands of its actors, who succeed masterfully.
Director Jordan Schartner and assistant director Tyrell Crews have provided a dynamic staging driven by the commanding physical presence of Nyland and Alexander. From diatribes fuelled by the emphatic hand gestures of the type-A personality to incongruous muckracking directed by both men simultaneously at the audience, the production’s energy is utterly engaging.
Sometimes as directly involved as the pre-show handshaking, sometimes as visually affecting as a literal interpretation of the term "corporate noose," the play is more than monologue, more than confession. Even Blanchet, whose referee character is a relatively stoic presence, offers a solid performance that serves as a calm foil to Nyland and Alexander’s growing mania.
Though the corporate archetype is familiar, from the obsession with personal success to the hidden demons that we assume lurk beneath it all, Never Swim Alone offers a perspective that proves why the archetype endures. Supported by a cast that brings the immediacy of their confessions to full effect, it brings equal measures of comedy and dread. |
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