Boy Gets Girl
By Rebecca Gilman
Directed by Miles Potter
A presentation of CanStage,
Bluma Appel Theatre (Toronto)
Box Office Information
By Regen Danly
There are a couple of things that stand out about CanStage's production of Rebecca Gilmour's Boy meets Girl. Firstly, it is refreshing to have a playwright discuss disturbingly common issues, in this case stalking, from a genuinely female point of view. It's one thing to intellectualize a female perspective, or to empathize, or to romanticize (and some of the severely challenged may even eroticise stalking). But the visceral, raw, vulnerability, the experience of being terrorized by a psychotic individual is very difficult to communicate to an audience if you have not walked the walk, so to speak. This play's gem is its authenticity.
It is also a pleasure to see a solid sample of what has become an identifiably American style of modern naturalism that has dominated American playwriting for some twenty years or more. It's personal, often specific to New York, often framed in the idiosyncrasies and heightened social pressures of that intense, ambition-driven and sometimes-insular environment. Canadian drama tends toward rural domestic angst, urban spiritual poverty and depression--recurring themes in Canadian theatre. Americans enjoy urban social dysfunction of the more exotic variety and raw fear. Nice to have a change of tone and
rhythm.
 |
Seana McKenna as Theresa Bedell,
Kevin Bundy as Tony |
Boy meets Girl takes place in New York City and opens with a blind date between a thirty-something Tony (Kevin Bundy), and a slightly older professional woman, Theresa (Seana McKenna), a writer for World magazine. They have a quick beer and find each other personable enough to make a second date. But even in this first meeting, there is a slightly ominous sense that Tony is trying a little too hard to cover his anxiety and insecurity.
Kevin Bundy (no relation to Ted, presumably) hits exactly the right charming, sensitive yet needy notes, barely veiling antenna-popping edginess in the first meeting. He seduces Theresa and us with shyness, awkwardness and repeated references to his loneliness. By the second meeting Theresa decides, not unkindly, that she sees no future in the relationship. But Tony, though initially understanding, is unable to accept 'No' for an answer. The next morning he intrudes on her at work, and continues in the following days and weeks to assault her with a stream of flowers and messages that become progressively more obscene and threatening. Theresa's male co-workers suggest that she contact the police.
Seana McKenna's Theresa is naturalistic and engaging, if not quite believable as a New Yorker. Her progression from confidence to confusion and defensiveness, and then to naked fear is convincingly wrought as far as it goes. However, the contrast between the Theresa we meet at the beginning and the Theresa whose life and sense of self decomposes before us lacks the dynamic that a more substantial contrast might illustrate. McKenna's Theresa is missing the personal and professional chutzpah one might expect from a New Yorker. We do not see sharply the degree of loss or selfhood suffered by this intelligent, competent, savvy and poised woman when she is robbed of everything she thought she had. Instead we see a lonely, brittle, withdrawn, cautious woman who travels a much shorter distance to lonely, ripped off and frightened. Director Miles Potter does not challenge McKenna enough to bump it up another notch in this critical role. As a result we miss some of the potential impact of the play.
As Theresa tries to continue with her life under stress-filled circumstances, we get to know some of the other men populating her life and see how these events colour and distort both her view of them and their view of her. Her employer, Howard Seigel (Peter MacNeill), a divorced 50ish man is quick to offer her sanctuary at his apartment. MacNeil's Howard is sweetly paternal in his worry but entirely baffled by the fear he sees in Theresa. John Jarvis, as fellow writer Mercer Stevens, illustrates effectively the ambivalence of men who perceive assaults on women merely intellectually. He blunders about planning to exploit Theresa's terror in an article until he begins to explore his own occasionally thoughtless objectification of women in this new context.
Eric Peterson plays Les Kennkat, a mammary gland obsessed, lower-rent Roger Corman-seque director who Theresa interviews for the magazine. Les sets the counterpoint for Tony. He is initially every kind of offensive, sexist lout that ever blithely humiliated women in porn movies or life. Interestingly, we find as the play progresses that at 70-plus years of age he is lonely and ill. His greatest regret is that he will die alone and he realizes that it is his fault. Mr. Peterson is hilariously engaging as the sleazy boob worshiper, whose raw honesty finally reveals to us not a predatory, testosterone-poisoned male, but a lonely almost innocent human being who does not quite understand what went wrong in his life. Theresa begins to re-examine her distrust of men as she comes to recognize his humanity.
Erin Malin rounds out the cast as Harriet, the leggy, off beat receptionist /secretary. She is the office neophyte who innocently exacerbates the stalking by passing information to Tony, who wiles it out of her. Achieving cute is no small feat for a woman who stands, I'm guessing, close to six feet in her stocking feet and is dressed like a greyscale tone card. She brings to Harriet a small town conservativeness that contradicts her funky clothes. A little more kicky, self absorbed, youthful big city attitude might have allowed her to play more with the opportunity to provide comic relief. This girl is not dumb or apologetic, she's just inexperienced feels guilty for creating opportunities for the stalker.
Satori Shakoor seems a little unsure of her footing as the policewoman, Madeleine Beck. We see the sadness but not the authority of a police detective who has seen too much. And her wardrobe? The matching beige ensemble was out of place. It seemed designed to make sure a black woman did not disappear into the mainly black set. The distracting handbag was big enough to carry off a suspect to the station.
Peter Hartwell's set design was functional and striking. Rotating 180 degrees from the black and chrome office with three windows upstage on one side to various locations--the pub, restaurant and Theresa's bedroom--on the other was effective and elegantly simple. No doubt the wardrobe changes were a challenge on a moving stage with little time or room to move but the overall effect was successful. The starkness of the black set focused us, almost like looking through a telescope, framing the action. However the neo-classical plane presented on each side limited the area allowed for the actors to move creating a visually static feel. The actors became either shooting gallery targets or were unnaturally rooted. The office side was particularly right angled. Theresa is often behind her desk and so far stage left, sitting largely in profile, she looked like a guest in the scene rather than the focal point of what should be her space.
Mr. Hartwell's costume designs were more successful for the men than the women. Theresa's dowdy costumes do not convince us that she is a savvy, big city professional. Her clothes are largely black or grey, poorly cut, non-descript and ill fitting. Consequently, there is little contrast between the presumably crisp, in-control Theresa we might have seen before, and her gradual dishevelment as the stress of stalking assault begins to affect her life.
Miles Potter also chooses to not allow any of the characters to touch. There is no friendly physical contact between Theresa and her co-workers, no easy physical confidence. Theresa shakes hands with Tony at the beginning, touches no one through the core of the play and even at the end, at her most distraught, no one touches her. There is no illustration of her withdrawal into physical distrust, except in the dialogue itself. It's unclear whether this was intended or an accident but it confuses the intended issues at the heart of the story by implying that her isolation was inevitable, and only likely to get worse. As such, we lose subtext and a degree of dimension.
As well, Mr. Potter has not managed to achieve with his actors a feel for New York and New Yorkers. New York is not Canada. It's more edgy, aggressive, self-absorbed, unapologetic, arrogant. New Yorkers expect to take up space and meet confrontation with more confrontation. New York City's professional people understand the power and necessity of appearing self-possessed in arguably the world's most dynamic and competitive city. New York vibrates defiantly. Canada, by comparison, watches a little more for approval, permission, is gentler and more observant. If a play is set in New York City, it should not feel like London, Ontario on the stage.
Generally, this production is certainly a worthy evening at the theatre, as far as it goes. However, it leaves one longing for more of what this fine cast is certainly capable of delivering.
CanStage Box Office
Information:
| SCHEDULE: |
|
Monday-Saturday 8:00 p.m. Wednesday matinee 1:30 p.m.
Saturday matinee 2:00 p.m. |
| TICKETS: |
|
$20 to $75 (With
pay-what-you-can-monday's). |
| LOCATION: |
|
Bluma Appel Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the
Performing Arts, 27 Front Street East, Toronto, Ontario. |
| BOX OFFICE: |
|
Tickets are available in person at either CanStage Customer Service Centre, 26 Berkeley Street or
27 Front Street East. By telephone at 416-368-3110, by calling Ticketmaster at 416-872-1111 or
online at www.canstage.com.
|
|
