DETAILS

ATP presents the Enbridge playRites Festival of New Canadian Plays
Martha Cohen Theatre
Wednesday, February 4 - Sunday, March 8

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“We don’t live alone.” These simple words, uttered in thundering tones by Inspector Goole (Duval Lang), sum up the message of J.B. Priestley’s 1945 masterpiece, An Inspector Calls.

Set in 1912, the play takes place in the drawing room of an upper-class British family, the Birlings. They are celebrating the engagement of their daughter to the son of a prosperous businessman when the aforementioned inspector calls.

Goole enters bearing news of a young woman’s suicide and, one by one, questions each member of the family about their possible involvement with the deceased. What ensues is not so much a mystery as it is a diatribe against selfish individualism without any consideration of consequences.

I found the show far too preachy for the modern theatre-goer. The message that we are all collectively responsible for those less fortunate in society is hammered home repeatedly. There is no subtlety here. Given the year in which Priestley wrote the play, after the world had been decimated by war, the urgency of the message conveyed by the show isn’t surprising.

In his life, Priestley was a politician and political commentator as well as a nuclear disarmament activist. An Inspector Calls is one of his most well-known and well-regarded works. It has been made into a film, adapted for television and also made an appearance at Ontario’s Shaw Festival in 2008.

Directed by Ron Jenkins, Vertigo’s production features an elegant set and rich costumes. Paul Cowling takes a turn as the buttoned-up, self-righteous businessman, Arthur Birling. He is stellar in his matter-of-fact arrogance, as is Mrs. Birling, played by Jan Alexandra Smith.

Lang, however, shouts and overacts his way through the part of the inspector. With all the yelling and railing, I felt no sympathy by the end of the play for the girl who had committed suicide, despite some cast members’ best attempts to wring tears from the audience.

Jenkins makes an interesting choice by having the ghost of the young woman (Julie Orton) float in and around the stage to help physicalize the regretful memories the characters experience. Eric Nyland as the husband-to-be, Gerald Croft, Vanessa Holmes as the young Sheila Birling, and Phil Fulton as the drunken young Birling son, Eric, round out the cast.

Overall, the play is good. Much of the interest comes from continually finding out new connections between the deceased and members of the Birling family, as well as watching them experience revelations about their roles in the world. Very little, however, is ever mentioned of the girl’s own responsibility for her unfortunate fate. As a present-day theatre-goer, I’m accustomed to plays in shades of grey. This one is a little too black-and-white for my liking.