Contrived trip needs additional depth
Fierce
1/2 (out of 4) Written by George F. Walker. Directed by Wes Berger. Until March 3 at Red Sandcastle Theatre, 922 Queen St. E. criminal.girlfriends.com Prolific Canadian playwright George F. Walker, known for his explorations of the darker side of Canadian life, has been on a roll of late.
Walker produced 22 plays between 1971 and 2000, among them the Suburban Motel cycle, before taking a decade-long break from playwriting. Since 2010, he’s added another 17 titles to his oeuvre, two of which premiered in the last six months, including raucous three-hander The Chance at the Assembly Theatre last October.
Now there’s Fierce, featuring another all-female cast. Walker’s signature snappy dialogue is in full force as psychiatrist Maggie (Marisa Crockett) goes head to head against former inmate Jayne (Emmelia Gordon, a welcome acting addition from Vancouver, making her stage debut here), who’s taking court-ordered treatment after yet another drug and drink-fuelled public disruption.
Walker continues his interest in creating characters on the margins of society who are suffering traumas, most of whom have kept their humour intact as defence mechanisms. Here, both women struggle to cope with their pasts and, in just over an hour, they reveal those pasts to each other as they bond through their desires to escape reality and fully face their sorrows.
This works as long as you can forget that Maggie is supposedly a trained and experienced psychiatrist, accustomed to working with difficult and emotionally manipulative patients. Jayne, played with bone-dry wit by Gordon, too easily brings Maggie to her breaking point, and their session quickly turns to them both partaking in acid and multiple bottles of vodka.
Jayne’s goal is to get Maggie to reveal her troubled past (which Jayne already knows about, after a quick Google search) to make it easier for Jayne to discuss her own inner de- mons, and this is at least a clear, logical and human trajectory.
Gordon, in particular, takes to Walker’s humorous dialogue. Crockett has a much harder time keeping Maggie grounded, as Walker puts cracks in her responsible, put-together facade too quickly and too absurdly to be relatable.
Walker evidently cares about his characters, as does director Wes Berger, who creates physical closeness between the women as their emotional defences crumble. But, while it gets laughs, the story feels too contrived and constrained by its length to have a real impact.
Both Maggie and Jayne are “fierce,” as the title suggests, benefiting from other “fierce” maternal figures.
Walker correctly suggests that even fierce women can be miserable or continue to be fierce through their misery. But this story needs more time, more development and more depth. In other words, this misery could use more company.