Dark material hard to forget
Pomona (out of 4) Written by Alistair McDowall. Directed by Christopher Stanton. Until Nov. 19 at Geary Lane, 360 Geary Ave. ARCStage.com
Alistair McDowall’s dark sci-fi mystery Pomona was a major hit in London when it premiered in 2014, but its most telling line has a particular parallel to the cynical tone of 2016: “Everything bad is real.”
That line is spoken by Keaton, the most enigmatic character in a play full of broken timelines, whodunits, cryptic imagery and unanswered questions. Keaton, played by Bahareh Yaraghi (a wonderful actress in a less than wonderful wig), first appears onstage wearing a mask of Cthulhu, the H.P. Lovecraft-created, octopus-headed villain. Cthulhu is later revealed as the rising evil force that Keaton must battle in a game of Dungeons and Dragons she becomes passionately immersed in (not unlike another malevolent figure with a cultish following attempting a grab for power south of the border).
Also in that opening scene, property owner Zeppo (Carlos GonzalezVio) explains the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark to his passenger Ollie (Aviva Armour-Ostroff ), recently arrived to Manchester in search of her missing twin sister.
Like the thousands of crates in the final image of the classic Indiana Jones movie, Zeppo thinks boxes are better left unopened, and he discourages Ollie from searching for her sister any further — especially in the industrial wasteland in the middle of the city called Pomona.
Wilful ignorance and the burden of knowledge are other major themes in Pomona, which spirals into an underworld of kidnapping, sexual exploitation and violence.
Pomona articulates some of the most relevant points of privilege and inequality: a wealthy man, Zeppo, is able to ignore the darker sides of the world, while the more powerless Ollie has no choice but to pick up the slack and investigate.
This is the play’s North American premiere in a production by ARC (Actors Rep Company), directed by Christopher Stanton.
Other characters reinforce McDowall’s play as a modern horror set firmly within a heightened patriarchal, capitalistic dystopia: Fay (Deborah Drakeford) is a single mother and former wife of an abusive cop fighting for the safety of herself and her fellow sex workers; Gale (Liza Balkan) is a middle manager ignoring the dealings of her employers to keep her paycheque, even if it means the persecution of her own sex.
Two male security guards also suffer under patriarchy: Charlie (Ryan Hollyman) and the hypermasculine Moe (André Sills).
Pomona’s Manchester is a David Lynchian maze, though Stanton’s direction sometimes misses the comedy found in the first scene with Zeppo and Ollie. Often, his production leans too hard on atmosphere; transitions have the actors banging the set pieces (scaffolding, wooden planks and plastic tarps). At another point, Keaton sprays a line of red paint along the backdrop. These feel like blunt attempts to make the audience feel uncomfortable.
The wideness of Nick Blais’ set in the Geary Lane performance space gives the actors too much room when the play suggests they’re constantly weaving and looping between each other and repeating what has already come before.
Nevertheless, Pomona and its puzzling structure are hard to forget and its dark material only makes it harder to do so. It’s definitely a play of the 2010s.