Not a Wish of Congreve’s
Wish Direction & conception by Allyson McMackon. Until Nov. 13 at Dancemakers Centre for Creation, 55 Mill St. 416-538-6964.
There are some acts that are not as much courageous as they are foolhardy: climbing Mt. Everest without a Sherpa, walking the high wire without a net. To that list, you can add Wish, the latest production of Theatre Rusticle, which is currently running at the Dancemakers Centre for Creation. Why anyone would want to take William Congreve’s The Way of the World, one of the most densely plotted, verbally intricate scripts in the English language, and try to turn it into a piece of so- called “ physical theatre” escapes me.
Director and conceiver Allyson McMackon insists she did it to liberate the “ heart” of the play which “ is in there somewhere, beating away, needing and loving.”
I humbly submit that before you attempt that kind of cardiac surgery, you should at least comprehend the basics of anatomy. The original script is a complicated farrago of intertwined greed and lust, with marriages being planned and hearts being broken in order to accumulate fortunes as well as romance.
At the heart of it lies Lady Wishfort, aging, alone and unhappy. She’s the pivotal person in this version as well, only she’s called “ Wish.” And, if we didn’t get the point, she says “ I wish” more often than a tourist tossing coins in the Trevi fountain.
For most of the first act, I defy you to figure out what’s going on. I’ve studied this play and have seen it six times over the years, but even I was lost. Not only has it been hacked to pieces, but eight actors play 13 roles, with a lot of bewildering doubling, confusing things further.
Since it’s “physical theatre,” everyone moves a lot. Some of it makes sense, but most doesn’t. On the plus side, you’ve got people like Noah Kenneally, who looks appropriately vulpine, slinking around as the devious Fainall.
Brooke Johnson is also fairly impressive as Wish, especially during the one or two extended passages from the original script that she’s allowed to deliver. But the rest have, shall we say, mixed success. Mike McPhaden is amusing in a Red Green kind of way as Wilful Witwould, but his major role, that of the urbane Mirabell, is played in so nondescript a manner as to be invisible. On the other hand, his romantic interest, Millamant, is played by Emily Hurson as an audition for Charlotte Corday in Marat/ Sade. She twitches, scratches, lifts her skirt and rolls her eyes. It’s a bloody ridiculous interpretation of a woman who is supposed to be the nonpareil of sophistication and beauty. The irony is that in her attempt to “ liberate” the play from the shackles of Restoration Comedy, McMackon has wound up substituting a style even more artificial than anything found in Congreve’s original. And for some inexplicable reason, there’s a lot of Latin- flavoured music underneath, including the likes of Xavier Cugat. It even includes Nat King Cole singing “ Perfidia,” which, by the way, is Spanish for “ treachery.” My sentiments exactly.