Live and in person at the Coal Mine Theatre, 2076 Danforth Ave., Toronto, Ont. Playing to March 7, 2025.
Written by Duncan Macmillan
Directed by Diana Bentley
Movement director, Alyssa Martin
Set by Steve Lucas
Costumes by Laura Delchiaro
Co-lighting designers, Bonnie Beecher and Jeff Pybus
Sound by Thomas Ryder Payne
Cast: Oliver Dennis
Nickeshia Garrick
Farhang Ghajar
Matthew Gouveia
Sam Grist
Sarah Murphy-Dyson
Louise Lambert
Kwaku Okyere
Fiona Reid
Kaleb Tekeste
A bold and busy production that does not always serve the story because the technical ‘stuff’ gets in the way.
The Story. Emma is an actress who is losing her grip on reality and her ability to tell the truth. She’s an alcoholic and drug addict that is wreaking havoc on her sense of reality. She blends her character’s lives with her own until she blacks out. She goes into rehab that requires absolute honesty and commitment. Emma resists both.
The Production. Duncan MacMillan’s play is set in England. The language is often raw with frequent use of the “c-word”. For the Toronto production, many uses of the ‘c’ word have been cut. Director Diana Bentley has wisely relocated the play to Canada with subtle differences in the language, especially the swearing. Jarring language might tend to take the audience out of the play, which would be unfortunate since it has so many important things to say about addiction, truth, family, reality and the reason for the addiction, in the first place.
The audience sits on three sides of a square playing area. A black gauze curtain hangs down in front of some of the space. Ornate chairs and perhaps a desk is on the set. A scene from Chekhov’s The Seagull is enacted between Nina and Konstantin, two characters who once loved each other. Nina is speaking to Konstantin about how she has spiraled down in her life. Konstantin loved her but she went off with another man who destroyed her life “for want of something better to do”. Konstantin is a writer who has found some success but still pines for Nina.
The actress playing Nina has momentary memory lapses. She is lost and confused on the stage. The actor playing Konstantin is concerned. Finally, the actress collapses in distress. The gauzy curtain is ripped down. Thomas Ryder Payne’s cacophonous soundtrack blares and we are transported to a rehab hospital where the actress is brought for treatment. She is Emma (Louise Lambert), or at least that’s the name she gives after she initially says her name is Nina.
Over the course of the play Emma will protest going to group discussion; confess she just wants to get the toxins out of her body and then get on with her life; go to group and resent it; keep people wondering if she’s telling the truth or not.
Over the course of the play playwright Duncan MacMillan goes into the minutiae of addiction, the steps to recovery, the excuses for not engaging and slowly reveals the many layers to Emma.
Stage directions regarding the increase in noise, flickering lights, Emma’s hallucinations and the maneuvering of characters around the space are spare but effective in putting the audience in Emma’s incoherent, unsettled world.
Director, Diana Bentley made an impressive debut as a director with Yerma. Her vision there was clear, bold and inventive. With People, Places and Things, Bentley again brings that clear vision to the play and then some. While Duncan Macmillan’s stage-directed moments of chaos are clear, they are not as pervasive as Diana Bentley has directed them. Her production is packed with throbbing noise, wild gyrating bodies (kudos to Alyssa Martin, the movement director), and considerable effort to submerge the audience into Emma’s addled brain. The result is that all the ‘directed business’ overpowers the play. Sometimes the dialogue is drowned out or overwhelmed by all the wild gyrations. Instead of submerging the audience, the business alienates them.
That said, Diana Bentley’s general staging, especially of the last scene with Emma’s parents, was particularly revelatory. It spoke volumes about the relationship, and perhaps that Duncan MacMillan might have stacked the deck in that last scene.
As Emma, Louise Lambert is effective, especially in her more crazed scenes, sick with withdrawal, desperate for relief of the effects. She presents an attitude that is combative, controlling and still desperate. One wishes she was more nuanced in her performance to indicate Emma is slowly recovering. If the audience isn’t sure she is recovering, then one questions the point of the play.
Both Farhang Ghajar as Mark and Matthew Gouveia as Foster, both in recovery and both working at the rehab center give vibrant performances of people who know every trick of the addict and how to overcome them. Both Ghajar and Gouveia give compassionate, strong performances.
Oliver Dennis as Paul, is crazed, demanding and dangerous. As Dad, he is distant and cold. It said plenty about Emma’s family life.
Fiona Reid plays various characters from the Doctor, Lydia the Therapist and Mum—each distinct, each knowing, each has been down that path before. The Mum is particularly vivid.
I appreciate director Diana Bentley’s fierce attack in her direction of this complex play. I just wish the play came through more than the often busy direction of it.
Comment. Playwright Duncan Macmillan’s plays are weighty, vibrant works that deal with the issues of the world we live in. People, Places and Things deals with addiction and various ways of re-hab; Lungs deals with a young couple grappling with the decision to have children or not; Every Brilliant Thing is a young boy’s efforts to deal with his mother’s attempted suicide by making a list of every brilliant thing in the world that would cheer her up and show her the beauty of living.
Coal Mine Theatre does the same by programming plays that reflect the world we live in. The productions are bracing, well-intentioned and leave the audience with lots to ponder and consider. The audience puts themselves into every play with their own ideas of how each play affects them. The beauty of theatre.
Coal Mine Theatre presents:
Plays until March 7, 2025.
Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes (1 intermission)