Wry repartee brings life to Bar Mitzvah Boy

THEATRE BUTCHER

A metal desk, a plastic chair, a 2

It’s time for Joey (Richard Newman) filing cabinet. The setting for 2 to get bar mitzvahed. As Nicolas Billon’s Butcher is a grey the play opens, he visits the office of room full of grey objects, but the action Rabbi Michael (Gina Chiarelli) to discuss is all red. his preparation for the big day. The room is the office of Insp. Lamb He’s a little surprised to learn that (Daryl Shuttleworth). It’s 3 a.m. on the rabbi is a woman. She’s a lot more Christmas Day in a Toronto police surprised to see that Joey is in his 60s. station and he’s had a peculiar case The rabbi reluctantly agrees to tutor dropped into his lap. A woozy old man Joey, whose Hebrew is pretty rusty after (Peter Anderson) in a foreign military a 52-year absence from shul. uniform has been dumped at the station.

Bar Mitzvah Boy begins with both He has a meat hook hung around characters facing family trials. We his neck, along with the business card learn why it’s so important to Joey to of Hamilton Barnes (Noel Johansen). be called to the Torah before his own The old man only speaks an obscure grandson and that Michael’s daughter Slavic language called Lavinian. is enduring cancer treatments. At Lamb’s invitation, Barnes shows

Their early scenes have a screwball-comedy up, but has no explanation of who the vibe as they trade barbs elderly man is, or why he has his card. about love, death, and divorce. These Lamb recruits a translator (Lindsey lively exchanges are offset by monologues, Angell) and the mysterious game is as we watch Joey practise afoot. The fictional Lavinia fought a Torah verses and the rabbi speak to gruesome civil war 22 years ago, and her congregation. we learn that the people in this room

Chiarelli and Newman are both are still reckoning with its horrors. veteran performers and they have There’s a little of Death and the found an easy chemistry in Michael Maiden and Munich in the entertaining and Joey’s wry repartee. Chiarelli riddle Billon has made for us to naturally inhabits the role of an unravel. It’s complex enough that the overworked community leader, soldiering reveals are surprising, but not so baroque on despite personal sorrows. that we can’t guess our way ahead

I wouldn’t necessarily expect to of the action. mention the costuming in a contemporary Billon worked with two linguists two-hander, but Kaitlin to create the Lavinian language. Peter Williams’s designs were exactly Anderson has the difficult job of right. Joey the divorce lawyer wears speaking Lavinian, but he conveys so a tired-looking suit with a too-wide much in this very foreign tongue. tie, while the rabbi is a kind of bohemian It’s hard to write a thriller like soccer mom in her tunic tops this without some clichés. Another and flowered prayer shawl. rewrite might have dispensed with

The actors find their way around clunkers like “So you see, this isn’t the stage with a welcome minimum amateur hour” and “He won’t give in of pretence and fussiness. But I did to your tyranny!” wonder if director Ian Farthing Director Kevin Mckendrick and set might have found a little more in designer David Roberts have staged his staging and Carolyn Rapanos’s the show on a raised square. The office set. The show runs 95 minutes without furniture means that almost all intermission. While it’s very the action happens on a downstage watchable, the play’s final scenes section no larger than an apartment might have been enlivened by a little balcony. I see how this claustrophobic theatrical magic. effect might be meant to double down

Leiren-young’s program notes explain on the show’s tension, but it felt more that the playwright was himself limiting than effective. The blocking bar mitzvahed a few blocks away at sometimes felt like kids rolling around Beth Israel synagogue. The play is on the living-room floor. full of details that were new to this In those tight confines, the performers gentile. Along with Joey, we learned didn’t manage all the stage about tefillin—the black boxes worn business—handcuffs, phones, a manypocketed on the head and left arm containing backpack—as smoothly as verses of the Torah—and the ner I would have expected. This may just tamid, the sanctuary lamp that have been a symptom of openingnight burns continuously in front of the jitters. ark in every synagogue. Butcher is a classic locked-room

Bar Mitzvah Boy is having its thriller. In 85 intense minutes, we world premiere at Pacific Theatre. watch a deception unravel and the It’s always a treat to see a brand-new weight of history come to rest on the play. This one is a gentle, bittersweet characters’ shoulders. We’re asked, comedy that’s both charming and in the aftermath of genocide: do undemanding—a perfect date show, we want peace or justice? The play regardless of your faith. argues that we can’t have both.

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As part of Haida Now, sculptures by renowned Skidegate artist Louis Collison reflect social ranks and oral histories of his people. Rebecca Blissett photo.