Neglect, desertion and desire for power
Lo (or Dear Mr. Wells)
(out of 4) By Rose Napoli, directed by Andrea Donaldson. Until Nov. 11 at Streetcar Crowsnest, 345 Carlaw Ave. nightwoodtheatre.net, 647-341-7390. This is the second in Nightwood Theatre’s two-play series about sexuality and consent — important issues turned burningly topical in the context of Weinstein revelations and their aftermath. The first, Ellie Moon’s Asking for It, was a documentary-style piece sparked by the Jian Ghomeshi case that generated considerable buzz and sold out its run (I’m sorry to have missed it).
As Nightwood acknowledges, this two-hander by Rose Napoli comes at the issue of consent from a very different perspective. Indeed, Napoli reveals in a program note that she didn’t think that she was writing a play about consent at all: she thought she was writing a love story.
It was only when Andrea Donaldson — co-ordinator of Nightwood’s Write from the Hip program, and this production’s director — approached her and suggested inclusion in the series that Napoli realized the play could be understood as treating the consent issue.
This has resulted in a play and production that examine a teacher-student relationship with a profound ambiguity that is to some extent productive, but also feels like it could have benefited from more structural and thematic development. Napoli’s skill as a wordsmith (particularly for writing dialogue) shines through, as does a mesmeric central performance in which Vivien EndicottDouglas’s particular talents and attributes lock into a role that perfectly suits them.
The play charts the relationship between 15-year-old Laura (EndicottDouglas) — lonely, self-harming, and a precocious, brilliant writer — and her 40-year-old English teacher, Alan Wells (Sam Kalilieh). Narration by Laura at 25 years old, standing at the door of Alan’s family home carrying a book, frames their story.
Saying more than this requires some spoiling, so potential ticketbuyers who like plot and character twists to play out in real time in the theatre, be warned.
The two characters are drawn together when Mr. Wells recognizes Laura’s talent and concocts the idea of an after-school writing club. No one else joins, so it turns into their thing, and a relationship is formed through the shared love of words.
Initially, he’s presented as appropriately caring and conscientious (a point is made of him keeping the door open whenever they’re alone together), but, when Laura calls out a sexual connection between them and makes physical moves, his initial resistance topples and they launch a full-blown, months-long affair.
At various points in the action, 25-year-old Laura comments, with the benefit of hindsight and deeper knowledge, on her motivation for this engagement with her teacher: neglect and perhaps desertion by her father; the desire for power.
As she is in control of the narrative — we’re seeing the bulk of the action through her eyes — perhaps what’s presented is skewed in the direction of the idyllic, and not actually how it happened. Would they really be so reckless as to meet again and again in the classroom? Would he really offer her champagne in a hotel room with no mention of this being another level of illegality? Was their repartee really this sparkling?
Donaldson’s production doesn’t encourage a reading of the action as exaggerated, however; the performers, with skill and conviction, play out the story of two people who seem genuinely drawn to each other and well-matched, particularly at the level of intelligence and wordplay (when a text message autocorrect has him calling her Lo, she calls him Nabokov without missing a beat).
Endicott-Douglas, because she is petite and has a youthful appearance, is frequently called on to play younger than her age; here, this works to the production’s benefit as she moves between playing younger Laura’s burgeoning self-awareness and the older character’s angry conviction.
What’s going on inside Alan — to what extent he is aware of his own exploitation of a massive power imbalance, not to mention the fact that what he’s doing is against the law — is not directly explored. Throughout, and as underlined in Kalalieh’s sincere, mild-mannered performance, he’s presented as a decent guy swept away in a series of what the audience is called upon to understand as deeply troubling choices. Things grow more usefully complicated as the play nears its end and Laura, without seeming to understand exactly what she’s doing, starts to undermine their relationship. But it’s only in the play’s last minutes that Alan’s self-serving nature, and Laura’s anger toward him, is foregrounded.
What the play’s really about, and what comment it’s making about its characters’ actions, does not seem fully resolved: this, to some extent, makes it a worthy prompt for ongoing dialogue on the issues raised, but also leaves the lingering feeling that more dramaturgical work would have helped integrate the comment that Laura (and Napoli) are making in the play’s outer frame into the bulk of its action.