MOSCOVITCH’S INFINITY PONDERS TIME, LOVE
And the verdict on love? ‘It’s a mess, it’s not some planned thing’
Sarah Jean is f---ed about love. She tells us as much in the opening lines of the latest production from Theatre Network, Hannah Moscovitch’s Infinity, on stage at the Roxy on Gateway until May 6.
Her college roommate told Sarah Jean that; she didn’t see it herself. Even as she picks through the litter of her relationships with men, Sarah Jean struggles to recognize a pattern.
“I’ve had lots of good... I’m very normal,” she says, her voice trailing off.
Of course, what’s normal, in love or anything else, is merely a construct, a way to frame the messy nature of life itself. What the audience will see by play’s end is that anyone who imagines they have the answers will find themselves brought up short.
But first, meet Elliot (Ryan Parker) and Carmen (Larissa Pohoreski). He has spotted her across the room at a house party, and follows her toward the door, meaning to grab her attention even as she elbows her way into her coat. Carmen has recently broken up with her fiance, and is reluctant to bother with Elliott.
“Elliot, I left my fiancé two days ago so I can probably offer you 15 to 20 minutes of sex, followed by 45 minutes of crying,” says Carmen, in a sharp preview of all the great writing to come by one of Canada’s premier playwrights. “That’s the ratio of sex to crying I have to offer right now.”
Instantly, Elliot is smitten. Why, she’s speaking in numbers and using mathematical terms, and he’s a theoretical physicist studying the very nature of time. Surely they are destined to be together! It’s true, Carmen is a violinist and a composer, and knows all about the maddening variety of ways to try to control time, and the struggle to explain the inexplicable through notes strung along the five lines of a musical staff. Each, in their own way, is trying to get a grip on chaos, and we want for them to make it work.
But quickly it becomes apparent that Elliott and Carmen have different ways of understanding love. He is obsessed with finishing his PhD, and lives within his head. An unplanned pregnancy, and the walking tantrum that is their daughter (the above-mentioned Sarah Jean, played by Cayley Thomas), adds further strain to the relationship.
Elliott and Carmen are at crosspurposes. Yet, they come together in brief, sweet exchanges that renew hope, again and again.
Infinity is a gripping, and complex, play. The scenes are interspersed by live, frenetic violin solos, played by both Pohoreski and Thomas, who are musicians first, and actors second.
This combination is not unsuccessful; Pohoreski’s interpretation of the string solos illustrate much about Carmen’s character, who keens and is never at peace.
Still, it remains up to Parker to carry the emotional weight of the story. He does this extremely well, and without sucking up all the air in the room.
At the helm of Infinity is director Bradley Moss, who beautifully balances the multiple and divergent skill sets on stage, and sets up the final, infinitely satisfying scene by Thomas, which truly brought goosebumps to my skin.
But perhaps the most arresting performance of the night is by Ian Jackson, the media designer for Infinity.
You may remember his work from last season’s Irma Voth, which garnered Jackson a Sterling Award. Jackson uses a black screen to project multiple layers upon the back wall of the theatre. Here, we see the violin score, and also Elliot’s interpretation of string theory. While the last image seen by the audience is a bit of a hammer over the head (like we didn’t know the play was about love), overall, the media design is instrumental in connecting the dots that is the script.
Infinity is an uncomfortable love story, and in that, is most hopeful, acknowledging as it does the folly of trying to rein it all in. As Elliott says: “It’s a mess, it’s not some planned thing.”
If you were hoping for love that can be spread, freshly ironed, upon your table, you may look a very long time. Love is formed in bits and pieces, from the past, and the present.
Moscovitch gives us permission to seize the parts, and make it real.