James Karas
Ellie
Moon’s What I Call Her delivers a solid punch, both physical and
emotional, in its climactic scene. The play builds up to an even higher
emotional apex after that with some outstanding acting by Ellie Ellwand and
Charlie Gould. Unfortunately there are problems with the breadth of the play
and the road to the final, enigmatic resolution.
Kyle
(Michael Ayres) and Kate (Charlie Gould) are a young couple, living in a simple
apartment in the Leslieville part of Toronto. They are affectionate and
apparently well suited for each other. We quickly find out that Kyle comes from
a very happy family whereas Kate was raised in a dysfunctional household and
harbours deep-rooted hatred and revulsion against her mother and her sister.
Michael Ayres and Charlie Gould. Photo: Dahlia Katz
We
will soon find out that there are some serious fissures in Kyle’s ideal family
but that will be only a minor sideline.
Kate’s
mother is in a hospice on death’s door and Kate has started writing her
obituary. As the plot develops, the obituary takes and maintains the central
focus for far too long. We slowly realize that Kate in her recollection and
hatred of her family may be relating events that did not happen, myths that she
has created or reliving her own psychoses.
When
her sister Ruby (Ellie Ellwand) appears, unexpected and unwanted, Kate’s
precarious emotional balance explodes in an expression of hatred and other complex
feelings about her.
The
sisters go through a roller coaster of emotions about their relationship and
their relationship with their mother. The mother was sexually abused as a child
and was a seriously damaged human being. Her children have inherited, perhaps,
her damaged personality but are largely unaware of it and blame the mother for
abusive conduct, which, as I said, may have little or no basis in reality.
Gould
and Ellwand display some incredible emotional intensity in their acting. Ayres
as Kyle is stuck between the two sisters deflecting shocks and being treated to
some abuse himself.
Charlie Gould and Ellie Ellwand. Photo: Dahlia Katz
The
problem is that there is not sufficient objective correlative to the emotional
reactions. Kate is writing an obituary before her mother is dead that she does
not intend to publish. Is she doing it for therapeutic reasons, for posthumous
revenge, for expiation of her feelings towards her mother and her sister?
Possibly. It is a thin plot device that does not sustain the play to the
heights that Ellie Moon seems to have intended.
The
author, the actors, director Sarah Kitz and the creative team are all young and
with the exception of Ayres and composer Ali Berkok, they are all women who
show a great deal of talent. The production company In Association, was founded
in 2016 with the purpose of producing Ellie
Moon’s first play Asking
for It. What I Call Her is worth seeing for that reason alone and for
the possibilities that it so clearly promises.
_________
What I Call Her by Ellie Moon, in a production by
In Association in partnership with Crow’s Theatre, opened on November 21 and
will play until December 8, 2018 at the Scotiabank Community Studio, Streetcar Crowsnest
Theatre, 345 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4M
2T1. http://crowstheatre.com/
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