Obsidian’s latest play doesn’t leave the audience hanging
(But others may swing)
By Stephen Weir for the Caribbean Camera
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| Zoe Doyle (l), Vlad Alexis and Sarah Afful (r) - Obsidian Theatre Company photo |
Maybe it is because
February’s dance card is so filled with events it takes a lot to get noticed. hang speaks to what is going on in the
world and is desperately in need of an audience. The first play of the season for Obsidian has
been running for a week and has yet to attract its traditional base, or even a
critical review – till now.
Obsidian Theatre Company, now in its 16th year, says it was born out of a passionate sense of artistic responsibility. The mandate is” to bring the Black voice, in its many artistic dialects, to Canada’s cultural forefront”.
The
theatre company attracts some of the country’s best talent to the city Last
week it opened hang at the Canadian
Stage Theatre in downtown Toronto. It has a 3-member cast starring Sarah Afful, a Ghanaian Canadian
Stratford actress, African Canadian actor and dancer (X: Men Apocalypse and
Stonewall) Vlad Alexis and theatre
and TV actress Zoe Doyle (Orphan
Black and Minority Report).
Hang
is written by England’s enfant terrible,
debbie tucker green (no capital letters please). She doesn’t care if you hate her plays; if
you do she says it just shows your passion! This is its first North American
performance and so far audiences have been taking to social media to praise not
criticize the work of the Jamaican British playwright.
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| Sarah Afful |
green
writes with a flurry of words. She has cut out all the extra fluff you
sometimes find in a play. There is no music. It is minimalist basement meeting
room set (the original UK version was staged in a black tube).
The
actors don’t get names – they are simply 1,2 and 3. hang
is conceived with 3 Rs. Rage, Revenge and Rank hatred red tape. It is set in a basement
meeting room, with a table, a stack of chairs, a water cooler an an air
conditioner that can’t cool the rage of character #3 (Sarah Afful).
This
is not Shakespeare with long flowing soliloquys. No, hang depends on a staccato machine gun delivery.
Interruption is the name of the game. The words are spit out like verbal
bullets. Most of the play 1,2 and 3 don’t
get to finish their lines.
3is
lead into the room at the start of the play by two lower rung officials - 1 and 2 (female and male). They could be
cops, but, since this is dystopia set in the near future, more likely they are
working for a private company that now administers
ultimate justice on behalf of the
country.
Afful
comes to the meeting, shaking and alone. Her inner fire is at first masked by political
correctness. She smiles on the outside but her eyes fire lighting bolts at 1
and 2 (and everyone in the theatre). 3 smothers all attempts to be made comfortable
and at ease, she is there to make a decision about a man who has hurt her and
her family.
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| Stephen Weir review in Caribbean Camera |
She
makes a mockery of 1 and 2s commitment to bureaucracy and red tape with a simple glare
on her face. The audience soon learns
that her life and that of her husband and two children have been ruined by an
unspeakable crime. It might
have been a rape. It might have been a murder. Heck, it coulda been both.
The
perp has been captured and now a final card has to be played. What to do with
him? That decision is the crux of hang – rest assure that in debbie tucker
green’s world, mercy is never an option.
We
saw the play on Saturday night. Given
green’s stellar standing in the theatre world, Theatre Obsidian’s standing in
the diaspora and the standing and importance of BHM, one would have expected a
standing room only audience.
Theatre Obsidian
deserves better. There were only 13 in the audience including my wife, two
ushers and myself. This is a cutting
edge play that is right for a time where wronged women are demanding revenge.
This highly skilled
cast gave it their all. They sizzled and shook on stage for 80 minutes even
though they were playing to 147 empty seats. Without bums in seats theatre cannot
exist – hang’s run so far doesn’t bode well for Obsidian or the art form.
The Theatre Company reports that at the beginning of a
run, its audience base tends to be slow
to come out. But, by the last week, tickets are extremely hard to acquire … at
any price.
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| Zoe Doyle (l), Vlad Alexis and Sarah Afful (r) - Obsidian Theatre Company photo |
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