Brilliance amid personal tragedy
The partnership between playwright Daniel Macivor and actor Clare Coulter is so potent that it’s hard to believe the last time it happened was 17 years ago, in a show called Sessions at the same Tarragon Extra Space where Was Spring premiered on Wednesday night.
As the indomitable Kitty, a battered and bruised octogenarian survivor of life on the Macivor plan, Coulter is such a perfect vessel for transferring the author’s words into thoughts and feelings that one could happily listen to her all night.
The play begins with her holding forth about her existence in the home where she is finishing off her days, and it’s rich with detail and outlined tellingly by Coulter’s dryly compact delivery.
If Macivor had wanted to make this a one-person show, I would have been content.
But he’s got much more on his mind (he usually does) and that’s where Was Spring becomes potentially richer, but also a bit more confusing and a lot more diffuse.
There are two other women who enter the picture, one at a time, to add their presences and tell their stories. Their names are Kath and Kit, which are close enough to Kitty that you might think they are all the same woman at three different stages in her life.
But there are biographical details that emerge as the stories unfold that make you think twice about lumping all three ladies together. They all experienced a tragic event that happened in the spring. Without getting into spoiler country, that’s about all one can reveal. Caroline Gillis, as the middle-aged Kath, is a frequent interpreter of
As the indomitable Kitty, Coulter is a perfect vessel for transferring the author’s words into feelings
Macivor’s work and the way she communicates his prose is flawless. She starts simply, then digs a hole that gets deeper and deeper with each word she delivers. By the time she offhandedly catalogues a day of drinking that starts off with scotch and winds up with vodka, you know she’s not exaggerating but taking you to the centre of a terribly tormented life. Then there’s Jessica Moss as Kit, in her early 20s and seemingly full of promise, but with a history where all the pain is nearest the surface. Moss doesn’t have nearly the experience of Coulter or Gillis and consequently can’t really succeed in getting under the skin of her character, but one wonders if MacIvor is also a bit to blame here. In another recent Macivor play, Communion, the older and middle female characters were sensitively drawn, but the younger one seemed schematic: an idea in search of a reality to hang it on. That’s what happens to Kit. On a tiny stage with precise lighting (both excellently designed by Kimberly Purtell), there isn’t much room, intentionally, for the women to do anything but state their cases and relive their lives.
The end result isn’t completely satisfying, but there are so many passages of brilliance along the way that you’re more than willing to spend the time, as always, with Macivor’s hard-won humanity and compassion.