January 10, 2008 17:01
WILD MOUTH
Featuring Oliver Becker, Sarah Orenstein. Written by Maureen Hunter.
Directed by R. H. Thomson. Presented by Tarragon Theatre. To Feb 10.
Tue-Sat 8pm, $32-$38; Sat 2:30pm, $32; Sun 2:30pm, PWYC; $20-$32
students/seniors, Sat excl. Tarragon Theatre, 30 Bridgman.
416-531-1827.
www.tarragontheatre.com.
There’s nothing remotely wild about Maureen Hunter’s Wild Mouth, a play that only feeds the preconception that Canadian drama is well intentioned, earnest and dull. Here is a play about the effects of World War I in which there is no tension and little action except for a brief, poorly staged struggle in Act 2. So little of interest happens in Act 1 that Hunter gives the audience no impetus to return after intermission.
Into the placidity of the Reids’ farm in Saskatchewan in 1917 storms Aunt Anna (Sarah Orenstein), who has lost her only son in the war and has become belligerently anti-war. The Reids, Anna’s brother Logan (Ian D. Clark) and his wife Roberta (Brenda Robins) have already lost one son and have another in combat. Anachronistically, Anna seems to believe in modern psychotherapy. She thinks the Reids should be talking about their pain rather than accepting it and silencing discussion. Anna also thinks that Bohdan (Oliver Becker) — the neighbouring Ukrainian-Canadian who's just returned from the war — should tell her about “what it was like” so that she can better understand what her son experienced. Like most World War I veterans he can’t bear to speak of it, yet any attempt of his to make her understand repels her.
The play is so curiously misconceived it produces effects contrary to its intent. If it is an anti-war play, why does Hunter make Anna so bellicose that it becomes obvious, in miniature, why wars happen? If it is pro-feminist, why is the proto-feminist Anna shown repeatedly as unsympathetic and out of her depth? As a result we don’t care about Anna’s quest, Bohdan’s past or the bland pious life of the Reids. It is really only through the sense of irony Orenstein gives Anna that we tolerate the character at all. Newcomer Sarah Allen is a standout as the Reids’ daughter Claire and is the best in the cast at conveying the repressed emotion that makes the Reids what they are. Becker, though not always understandable through his accent, gives Bohdan greater hidden depths than Hunter does. All in all, more exciting things happen in Todd Charlton’s highly detailed, sometimes seat-shaking soundscape than in the play itself.