A sobering tale of destruction
Seven years after a 9.1-level earthquake sent a tsunami crashing over Fukushima in Japan, setting off three meltdowns at the Daiichi nuclear power station in 2011, there are moves to re-settle and rejuvenate the area. Nearby towns have opened back up, Japan has permitted the export of fish caught off the Fukushima shore, and international tourists enter the site by bus, taking selfies in the abandoned zones as their Geiger counters spike.
But earlier this month, the Japanese government officially recognized the first radiationrelated death since the meltdown, that of an unnamed man who worked at the plant immediately after the disaster, measuring radiation levels. The after-effects of Fukushima have just begun to register.
That puts Canadian Stage’s season opener, a co-production of Lucy Kirkwood’s The Chil
dren with Montreal’s Centaur Theatre, in a dramatic context.
The play takes place years after a similar event has occurred on the coast of England, in the humble cottage of Hazel (Laurie Paton, in another memorable performance at Canadian Stage after last year’s The Hu
mans) and Robin (Geordie Johnson) just outside of the contamination area.
They exist on limited electric- ity, certified radiation-free vegetables from up the road, and exercise — Hazel does yoga, while Robin tends to their old farm on much more hazardous grounds. As parents of four grown children and retired engineers of the defunct plant, they stay in the area, as Hazel says, out of history and loyalty.
The arrival of an old colleague Rose (Fiona Reid) — returning from a position in America, childless and husbandless (this plays a key part in the plot’s technicalities) — not only forms a love triangle, but another indecent proposal over a night of reminiscing of old times, pontificating on the insatiableness of serial killers, James Brown and parsnip wine.
With Eda Holmes’s direction, the majority of The Children unfolds in a taut and tense reunion, punctuated by moments of levity (there’s an extremely charming dance scene) and the soberest of revelations.
As expertly performed and well-orchestrated as it is, this does appear to be a play we’ve seen before: old friends reunite, drink too much and, over the course of one night, reveal dark secrets that alter their current moment. Not even daily yoga could stop the creaks from flaring up in this time-worn formula.
But Kirkwood doesn’t reveal the true purpose behind Rose’s visit until relatively late in the play and, after the set-up of the previous 70 minutes, it drops like a satisfying Tetris piece sliding into place. The three vastly different characterizations are all pitted against a very immediate decision with enor- mous repercussions — the essence of high stakes theatre, which remedies where this structure usually falls short, by placing all of the action in the past.
In her predicament, which I won’t spoil here, Kirkwood’s script asks the questions: What is youth? What is potential? How do we reconcile our mistakes with their impact on the present, and who is meant to clean them up? It’s a refreshing, sombre perspective on a major source of anxiety today, and makes very hypothetical ideas tangible.
It suddenly refocuses the audience’s attention to take in the entirety of Eo Sharp’s realistic interior of the warm, run-down cottage. The raised platform only takes up a portion of the Berkeley Street stage and, underneath, lays a shiny veneer of turquoise acrylic. Throughout the evening’s events, the characters have not been alone — the environmental threat has been lurking beneath them.
This isn’t a play that pits young against old, but digs into the impossible decisions that a history of inaction will eventually bring us to and examines the losses on both sides. At a particularly strained moment, and achingly convincing from Johnson, Robin places his head in his hands and moans “I feel eroded.”
Kirkwood’s play, in the hands of this director and cast, is one of the most impressive pieces to fuse the destruction of the Earth with the destruction of ourselves.
Carly Maga is a freelance theatre critic for the Toronto Star.