By James Karas
The old idea that a play should have a beginning, a middle and an end is
not a bad one. A sequence of events in some logical or comprehensible order
involving people has proven its endurance as a theatrical device for some two
and a half thousand years and it behooves playwrights to practice it with
variations that are limited only by their imagination.
That is a prologue to my review of After Wrestling by Bryce Hodgson and
Charlie Kerr now playing at the Factory Theatre in Toronto. The play has four characters. Jaggy (Gabe
Gray) is a policeman who is very concerned for the people he deals with and
goes overboard in his solicitude for their welfare.
Leah (Libby Osler) lives with her brother Hogan (Charlie Kerr) and she
falls in love with Jaggy. Hogan is very, very emotional. Gibby (Anthony Shim)
is dead but appears in the play as a ghost. He was Hogan’s best friend and he
committed suicide but he is still very much around.
I am afraid I got almost nothing out of the play. Hodgson and Kerr seems
to be fans of 10-second scenes that go from nowhere to no place. They like
screaming and screeching, plenty of noise and sequences that make no sense.
Whatever the griefs, pain and problems of the characters, we never really get
involved in them. The authors’ love of foul language and screaming by the
actors so that we have no idea of what they are saying do not result in
dramatic effects but in significant annoyance.
The dialogue is generally of extraordinarily low caliber. I am not sure
if these people are supposed to be just low lives but even those people are usually
equipped by authors with decent dialogue to express some kind of emotion. No
such blame can be meted on the authors of After Wrestling and the actors
repeat the lines that they memorized no matter how ineffective they may be.
Opening night attendees are the last thing one should consider for gauging
audience reaction. In a large theatre, the friends and relatives of the actors
are outnumbered and although they may make a racket, you quickly go for a walk
In a small theatre, the audience of friends and relatives of the cast
and artistic team can make such a fuss as to be really annoying.
The set by Hodgson consists of the living room area of an apartment and
below that an open space with a microphone indicating a radio station on our
right.
There may be more substance to the play than this production made
apparent. But author Bryce Hodgson directs
and author Charlie Kerr stars in it. They may have needed someone with some
distance from the play to make sense of it for us.
_____
After Wrestling by Bryce Hodgson and Charlie Kerr produced by
Blood Pact Theatre will run until March 18, 2018 at the Factory Theatre, 125
Bathurst Street, Toronto, Ontario. www.factorytheatre.ca.
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