...Not
About Heros ...
February 14, 2002
Not very flattering review. Has anyone seen the play? Can you agree or disagree with what it written?
...Not
About Heros ...
Not very flattering review. Has anyone seen the play? Can you agree or disagree with what it written?
WEEKLY
November 2 1995 Toronto's
arts
newspaper
....free every Thursday
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ON
STAGE
ON STAGE
NOT ABOUT HEROES
Featuring Michael Mahonen and Stephen Russell. Written by Stephen
MacDonald.
Directed by Christopher McHarge.
Irving Zucker Theatre, 190 King William St., Hamilton. To Nov. 11.
$19-$44, (905) 522-7529.
by CHRISTOPHER WINSOR
Chances are in a play about two poets -- in this case WWI-era Brits
Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen -- you're
likely to hear some verse. It's also a safe
bet that the playwright
will use heightened or rarified language himself, because
it's obvious he's in love with words. Not About Heroes delivers on
both counts.
The story of the mentor/student relationship that develops between Sassoon and Owen as they recuperate in a wartime hospital, the show amounts to an overly highfalutin treatment of a basically staid and decorous relationship. It's also a plodding affair, handicapped as much by the play's structure as by performances that blow too hot or too cold.
Playwright MacDonald shoots himself in the foot twice. The first is
the cheap framing device that attempts to extort
emotions that have yet to be earned. Very
early in the action, Sassoon
turns to the audience and announces that Owen
was killed in action one year later. This is a beggar's ploy.
The second and fatal shot is that almost the whole script is written
in the past tense -- whether in Sassoon's descriptions
of their encounters or in the many letters
that flow between them.
The result is that nothing ever happens, except that the characters
describe
what has already happened. This technique might work for prose, but
it's
deadly theatre. Good
theatre happens now, before your eyes, unfolding as if for the first
time.
It doesn't help that Michael Mahonen as Owen demonstrates no range
as
an actor. Mahonen is stilted, over-earnest and monotonous throughout.
Stephen
Russell
as Sassoon has a better ear for the unnatural rhythms of the text,
and a more
musical voice. Yet he also adopts a melodramatic tack.
Director Christopher McHarge's contribution is invisible. His
blocking
is unimaginative and ambiguous. Should not the
choice have been made to stage this entirely
as a memory play (Sassoon's)?
That would easily have worked on Dennis
Horn's attractive and non-realistic set.