Soulpepper finds joy in backstage drama
Jitters
(out of 4) Written by David French, directed by Ted Dykstra. Until April 15 at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 50 Tank House Lane. soulpepper.ca and 416-866-8666
God bless backstage comedies. When they’re beautifully written and produced — as this Soulpepper revival of David French’s 1979 Canadian classic certainly is — they run like clockwork and bring audiences enormous pleasure.
They’re part of a subset of plays about labour: about groups of people undertaking complicated work while coping with the inevitable interpersonal and performance pressures that come with this (the jury room drama Twelve Angry Men, recently revived at Soulpepper, and the comedy The Civil Servant, currently at the Berkeley Street Theatre, also come to mind). What gives theatre-work plays an extra frisson is the very public nature of the outcome of that labour, and the combined strength and vulnerability required of the arts workers who do it.
While a key theme of French’s play is Canadian cultural insecurity, it’s important to note that this excellent play premiered three years before Englishman Michael Frayn’s betterknown Noises Off.
Their structure is remarkably similar: three acts, the first onstage as a new play in the late stages of rehearsal and things are going hilariously wrong; the second backstage before or during a performance as further disasters ensue; and the third onstage again as the company perseveres in keeping the show going despite these obstacles.
Throughout, they poke fun at theatre artists’ insecurity and competitiveness, but at the same time metatheatrically celebrate the talent and dedication that it takes to put live theatre on its feet, in that the plays themselves are formally complicated and require great skill to execute.
Ted Dykstra’s Soulpepper production of Jitters premiered in 2010; this revival features many of the same actors, who inhabit their roles with enormous confidence.
Diane D’Aquila is wonderful as the grande dame Jessica, returned to Canada after several years on the New York stage. This character gets to play more feelings and actions than any of the others: from rehearsal scenes where she strains to remain professional as her co-stars drop lines and bitch about costumes; to a wonderful dressing room exchange as she and leading man Patrick (Geordie Johnson) size each other up; to a nearly operatic third act in which Jessica reacts to a bad review by having a tantrum about a bad wig and dissolving into insecure tears. D’Aquila contains all of these levels in her beautifully drawn performance.
Oliver Dennis’s turn as the hapless character actor Phil is justly cherished: like the other performers he’s so very funny because he plays the character and all his foibles with total commitment rather than external self-awareness or judgment.
Phil’s traits — fussy, lives with his mother, no mention of a sex life — could have added up to a clichéd portrait of a closeted gay man and it’s to Dykstra’s and Dennis’s credit they don’t go down that dated road.
French’s script does show its age, however, in its portrait of two younger women working in disempowered behind-the-scenes jobs and using their sexuality as their only route to status; Sarah Wilson and Sophia Walker nonetheless bring subtlety and wit to these limited roles.
Mike Ross is perfect as the playwright Robert, whose neurotic control-freakery about his script turns apoplectic when it seems like he might have to fill in for a missing actor (“Why do I have to go out there tonight and butcher my own play? That’s what actors get paid for.”).
Jordan Pettle is fantastically bottled up as the put-upon stage manager Nick; Alex Furber sweetly clueless as the ingénue male Tom; and Kevin Bundy excels in bringing quiet comic authority to the director George.
The only performance that still feels like it’s settling in is Johnson’s, who’s playing Patrick here for the first time: the complex vocal work required (in the first act he has to layer an exaggerated faux-Italian accent onto a presumably adopted Irish one) is not yet entirely there, and he doesn’t seem initially comfortable in his physical presence though — as does the whole production — he hits a wonderful stride halfway through the second act.
Some major plot points about difficulties in communication pretty much necessitate keeping the play in its original late 1970s setting, and set and costume designer Patrick Clark has a field day playing with the orange-brown-mustard colour scheme.
This is a joyful piece of programming that allows the Soulpepper ensemble to shine.