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| About Tom * Chick Reid * Gallery * Interviews * Films * TV Theatre * FAQ * About Ground Control * Contact Info * Links |
| Shadows September 5th and 6th, 2002 Director: Dennis Garnhum Writer: Timothy Findley Cast: Brent Carver, Stephen Ouimette, Kimwun Perehinec, Gordon Rand, Brenda Robins, Karen Robinson. Character: Kate Terry Plot: On the night of an eclipse, seven people meet for a dinner party at the house of the extravagant Ben Singer to tell their extraordinary stories. Review: I got the inkling there might be something interesting going on in Shadows when I had both Tom McCamus and Chick Reid tell me, without provocation, what an amazing actor Brent Carver is. Whether the play would stand up to Carver and the other prodigious talent on display, including Stephen Ouimette and Reid herself, was another matter. On the face of it, it seems like yet another "throw some interesting characters together and see what happens" scenario, with the problem being that no audience worth its salt is ever much surprised by the tales of sex and violence such gatherings usually surround. But the stories are entertaining enough and well told, if hardly doing justice to the seething energy which the cast, and Carver in particular, display. Fortunately Findley, in his last play, has more cards to deal out leading to a second half built on more irony and self-reference than anyone could usually stomach... except Carver makes it work, making the line between Stratford playwright Ben Singer and Stratford actor Brent Carver increasngly thin. Of course, in a play which focuses on the truth and in the end evades it completely, there are no answers, and perhaps too many answers. Carver runs the show on both an energy level and in the context of the play, meaning that the other six actors are more often left to play bit parts. All have good comic timing and a sense for both the serious in the ridiculous and the ridiculous in the serious, but while Ouimette and Robinson convey a good enough reality along with their jokes, the script does little to raise the others above talk show fodder. Reid plays the bitch with relish, but has been given perhaps the least imaginative character. Still, the play is about Carver and his gleeful manipulation of the other characters, the audience, and probably also that mysteriously invisible cat he keeps trying to feed. Shadows gets its laughs, its shocks, and its point across, but most importantly it has a star. One I'm very glad I saw again. Trivia: Paired up with the one-act play Walk Right Up at the Studio Theatre, in which Kimwun Perehinec and Brenda Robins also starred. |