Written by Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman. Directed by ahdri zhina mandiela. Featuring Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman, Catherine Fitch, Monica Dottor, Ryan Hollyman. To Nov 2. Tue-Sat 8pm; Sun 2pm. $26-$37; Sun PWYC; Wed $20 for people under 30; Fri some $10 rush tickets available 10 minutes to curtain. Factory Theatre Mainspace, 125 Bathurst. 416-504-9971.
www.factorytheatre.ca.
As with movies that are based on true stories, Scratch packs built-in punch. Central character Anna (Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman, also the playwright) is a teenager yearning for adulthood but instead has stubborn head lice. Meanwhile her artist mother (Mary Ann Mcdonald) is dying of cancer.
In real life, Corbeil-Coleman was just a teen when her mother, the journalist and playwright Carole Corbeil, died of that disease. This show is unabashedly born of her emotional upheaval. In the opening night audience sat Layne Coleman, father of the playwright, while on stage an actor (Kevin Bundy) depicted his helpless grief. Weird.
Quite apart from these meta-matters, however, Scratch stands up. The humour is snappy and wise, and rarely obstructs the drama. The story unfolds as easily as a blanket, a tribute to Corbeil-Coleman’s gloriously efficient writing (additional kudos to dramaturge Iris Turcott?) and the measured direction by ahdri zhina mandiela. The dying-mother trope has often been milked for over-the-top emotion, but Scratch boils it down to the essentials. As the parents, Bundy and Mcdonald convey so much about their relationship in such a short time — a sparseness that lends greater power to brief emotional moments.
The supporting cast is uniformly strong, but as an actor, Corbeil-Coleman has yet to settle into the part, however stupid that may sound. There’s no doubting the emotional veracity of her performance, but at times she wears her technique on her sleeve. (By which I mean, could you pull up that friggin’ sweater?)
She’s likely to come along quickly in the emotional hothouse of this world premiere, and Scratch may well be a four-star show before the end of its run. It definitely marks the mainstage splash of a gifted and courageous writer.