Tree change
The Orange Dot Streetcar Crowsnest Guloien Theatre
A man and a woman are waiting to cut down a tree. They’re Toronto city workers. The woman, who is the first to arrive, imprints on the tree the orange dot that signifies that it’s been marked for destruction. It also goes very nicely with her and her partner’s orange jackets.
The woman in Sean Dixon’s new play is called Natalie, the man’s name is Joe. The tree is a peculiar specimen, with what looks like a piece of abstract sculpture jutting awkwardly out of its branches. It could be a discarded model for the one that disfigures the ROM.
The cutting crew has been delayed in traffic, leaving Joe and Natalie, the advance guards, with little to do but talk. We learn that Natalie’s mother was a nurse, and has recently died. That’s more backstory than is afforded Joe, but he seems a nice enough guy who goes off to buy his partner a cappuccino which she flings back in his face; metaphorically, I should add. Although at a later point in the play he might not have gotten off so lightly.
Initially we seem to be at one of those talking-to-pass-the- time pieces, like Waiting for Godot or Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter or — more recently and judging from reports, since I haven’t seen the play myself — Annie Baker’s The Flick. Unlike the characters in those plays, but like those in just about everything else these days, Natalie and Joe spend a lot of time talking about the Internet.
They chat about George Clooney’s attractiveness and about his wife’s name, and about Joe’s personal obsession with Canadian boys who leave Scarborough to fight for ISIS. Also about whether or not ISIS is an acronym. At one point Natalie accuses Joe of being a mansplainer, leading them to wonder what the female equivalent might be. “Mansplaineress” is floated and rejected; “womansplainer” doesn’t seem to occur to either of them. The exchange is the first serious hint of a subterranean antagonism between them.
That tension keeps us interested through dialogue that is generally easy-flowing and sometimes amusing. The suspense breaks down when the author tries to drive it up. In his play’s last section there’s a break in tone, style and even subject that involves Natalie brandishing a weapon along with her phone, and calling Siri to request what one hopes is unusual information, even in Google- land. The scenario registers as something the author thinks he owes to himself, rather than to any conceivable audience.
Perversely the worst part of the play gets the best out of its actress, Daniela Vlaskalic, who goes at it with grisly determination. Previously, it seemed as though she was trying too hard. Her words never sound as natural as the play’s initial convention requires them to be, though her fleeting looks of pain register as real. Shawn Doyle’s Joe, by contrast, is consciously ingratiating and unconsciously insensitive to just the right degree. Vikki Anderson directs, probably as well as the play permits.