Live and in person at the Berkeley Street Theatre, Toronto, Ont, produced by Necessary Angel in association with Canadian Stage Company and Birdland Theatre. Playing until Feb. 2, 2025.
www.canadianstage.com
Written by Roland Schimmelpfennig
Translated by David Tushingham
Directed Alan Dilworth
Set and lighting by Lorenzo Savoini
Costumes by Ming Wong
Composer and sound by Debashis Sinha
Cast: Frank Cox-O’Connell
Kira Guloien
Cyrus Lane
Diego Matamoros
Nancy Palk
Playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig writes about the insidious banality of evil and how it creeps up on the trusting and gullible. The playwright doesn’t know if he wants it to be a bracing play or a novel with too much narrative, as if the audience is not bright enough to get the message, what with all the history available for information. The production is stylish and the acting is fine.
From the Programme note: Playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig says of Winter Solstice: “My focus was always on the method of the ‘fascist’ seduction…It’s not new. I works every time and it’s horrible.”
The Story. It’s Christmas Eve. Albert and his wife Bettina are having a spat. Albert chastises Bettina because she never greets her mother, Corinna, when she arrives, saying that is rude. Bettina in turn is angry at her mother because she has invited a stranger to celebrate Christmas Eve. Corinna was on the train that day and was engaged in conversation with Rudolph who was also on the train. The train was stuck. Rudolph was a courtly, charming older man who helped Corinna pass the time so she invited him for the family festivities, because Rudolph was alone for the holiday. Albert was a little put out by this but he tried to be gracious.
They were also joined by Konrad, Albert’s long-time friend. Konrad was a painter who was doing a painting for Albert and Bettina.
As the play unfolds, we learn that the characters have secrets. They exchange ideas, conversations and gradually we perceive the unsettling effect that Rudolph has on the others: some are charmed others are wary.
The Production, Comment. Director Alan Dilworth has conceived a spare production. Set and lighting designer, Lorenzo Savoini, has created a playing area that takes place in a large ledged rectangle around shiny wood floor. Characters sit on the ledge of the rectangle. Part of the rectangle is illuminated which adds another idea of stylishness and a moneyed environment. There are few props except a Christmas tree and some wine glasses. Wine is imagined being poured into the glasses.
The production starts with a bang as Albert (a lively Cyrus Lane) and Bettina (an irritated Kira Guloien) sit on the ledge and Albert rails at Bettina’s rudeness toward her mother, Corinna (an accommodating Nancy Palk). The back and forth bickering is intense, full throttle and illuminates the cracks in this marriage.
Corinna has brought Rudolph (a smooth-talking Diego Matamoros), a well-dressed stranger to celebrate. He is accommodating, charming, courtly and gracious almost to a fault to everyone as he tries to feel at home. Corinna and Rudolph met on the train as Corinna was coming to her daughter’s for the holiday. Where Rudolph was going is never explained. Both husband and wife are not happy that this stranger is there.
Then instead of letting the play and these battling characters speak for themselves, for some reason playwright, Roland Schimmelpfennig changes the style of the play into an over-narrated ‘novel’ with Frank Cox-O’Connell (who also plays the artist friend Konrad) explaining in great detail the attitudes, reactions, perceptions and thoughts of the characters, as they react to each other. The initial argument is bristling. The endless narration, with Cox-O’Connell skirting the playing area earnestly following the action, meticulously explaining every reaction, weighs the play down and makes the whole thing tiresome. One gets the sense that Schimmelfennig doesn’t trust the audience to ‘get it’, unless they are spoon-fed every nuance in the dialogue.
One’s eyebrows start to knit when Rudolph gradually poses philosophical questions about purity, both in music and in the world. He believes in order and not chaos. He believes in tradition. He is judgmental about various nationalities and what they can and cannot accomplish. He’s a doctor, from Paraguay. Schimmelpfennig illuminates in neon, his winks and nudges to the audience that reference recent history.
Debashis Sinha has created a soundscape of subtle rumbling that foreshadows the coming of extremism. It tries to create skin-tingling as we listened to Rudolph sound off on his theories of purity and watched others just remain silent. Even this technique seems familiar and not surprising.
The ensemble is terrific and the production is almost reverential in trying to make this 2007 play prescient. But the play in this form is ponderous and even dated. The world has turned upside down since 2007, with more extremists coming to the fore. Real life has diminished the punch of the play (if it ever had it).
A Necessary Angel Theatre Company production in association with Canadian Stage and Birdland Theatre.
Plays until Feb. 2, 2025.
Running Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes (no intermission)
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