National Post (National Edition)
A STAGE DIVIDED
SEQUENCE CRACKLES ENOUGH TO HOLD YOUR ATTENTION, BUT THE CHARACTERS ARE COUNTERS AT BEST
SOME MOMENTS OF VISUAL IRONY AND NONE OF CONFUSION.
On my left, the self-proclaimed luckiest man in the world, giving a motivational address on how he does it, meaning essentially that he doesn’t know and you can too. On my right, a sternly rationalist stem-cell researcher, addressing her students on the classically vexed subject of chickens, eggs and their pecking order.
That, as viewed from out front, is the opening set-up of Sequence, a play that comes to Toronto after winning prizes in Calgary and Bloomington, Ind. Its author, also from Calgary, is Arun Lakra, who by day is an eye surgeon.
Sequence belongs to the growing genre of scientific-mathematical-philosophical plays that proceed through argument, usually spiced with melodrama. Its particular preoccupation is the intersecting claims of chance and design, and it tells two stories that also intersect, at least in their staging. Theo, the lucky guy, and Dr. Guzman, the scientist, deliver their introductory spiels from their opposite sides of the stage,
Theo makes flamboyant use of a ladder and a mirror, Dr. Guzman more fastidiously relies on chalk and a whiteboard. Each of them then receives a visitor who turns out to be an opponent. As the two confrontations proceed, each spills over into the other’s space, creating some moments of visual irony and none of confusion. That certainly scores one for design over chance.
Theo has made a fortune by betting on the Super Bowl according to the toss of a coin. Somehow his call has always turned out to be the right one. He is confronted by Cynthia, a young lady who wants to prove that Theo’s choices have been governed, unknown to him, by a mathematical progression. She can’t afford to believe in luck because hers, on the face of it, has always been bad. Her health, and maybe that of her unborn daughter, has been genetically compromised. She also accuses Theo of having a sexual interest in her, though this doesn’t seem terribly relevant.
Over in the science lab, Dr. Guzman also faces a terrible misfortune. She is going blind, with a crucial piece of her research still incomplete. Through her door there rolls, in a wheelchair, a Mr. Adamson, one of her students, who recently pulled off the statistically astonishing feat of getting every question in a 150-question test wrong. He was born with cerebral palsy, and a traffic accident has made him a paraplegic. He could be the unluckiest man in the world, but he’s also deeply religious, and thinks that his misfortunes, like everything else in the world, are part of God’s plan. The doctor naturally finds his ideas appalling, and he of course thinks the same of hers.
The debates, especially on the academic side of the fence, crackle enough to hold attention. But the characters are counters at best, ciphers at worst, so interest flags and has to be artificially boosted. Parallels between the two scenarios have to be inserted. Sinister briefcases figure in both, quite effectively; so do firearms, quite desperately. Tricks are played, but not resolved, with coincidence and chronology; and these just seem cheap.
The director, Andrea Donaldson, goes for loud and fast: a plausible choice in a battle of words but one that proves hard on the actors. Ava Jane Markus winds up playing Cynthia on one aggressive note; so does Nancy Palk as Dr. Guzman, though her note at least encompasses some nicely tossed-off moments of bitter sarcasm. Kevin Bundy’s opening monologue is excessively kinetic, even by snake-oil standards, but when Theo starts to feel some pain, he is able to dig deep into it. The most flexible and therefore the best performance comes from Jesse LaVercombe, making a case for religious fundamentalism that’s urgent and, in a Toronto theatre context, surprisingly persuasive. However, it’s a sure sign that something has misfired when the audience applauds the start of the last scene, thinking it’s the curtaincall.
THEATRE NOTES
Footnotes on a couple of memorable one-off events. One of them was actually a three-off: three concert performances of the Marsha Norman-Lucy Simon musical The Secret Garden by a baker’s dozen of fine actor-singers, some familiar, some new and very young. They did especial justice to the English folksong aspects of Simon’s score and, as a real treat, were accompanied by a fine full orchestra under the baton of Mark Camilleri, a fearless accompanist (as I can testify) revealed as a sparkling conductor. He’s also one of the guiding spirits of Podium Concert Productions.
Also last week, the Barbara Hamilton Memorial Award for “excellence in the performing arts” was presented to Christopher Newton, whose production of The Audience opens at the Royal Alex on Thursday. Newton is best known for his phenomenal 22-year artistic direction of the Shaw Festival, an institution to which he brought both continuity and surprise. Ben Carlson, in a witty and charming tribute to the man under whose auspices he blossomed into one of Canada’s best actors, spoke of Newton’s “overview” of the repertoire he presented. Newton’s mandate, for most of his regime, was to stage plays written in Shaw’s own lifetime: a century’s worth of theatre of all kinds that he searchingly and eclectically illuminated. And his acceptance speech was charming too.
Sequence runs through Feb. 12 at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto