THEATRE More performances set for May From page 2 he fashions Michael's capture - into a Hitchcock film script. Their body's are chained but their minds are free. As Michael chastises Edward at one point: “Iris sot acell. Lam ina room. I have never been inside a prison and [never will be. How dare you put me ina cell?” But Adam, the American, has been there longest and the walls and fears are closing in. At the end of the second scene he is already talking about himself in the past tense. “I was a doctor,” he says to Edward, the newly-captured English professor carly in the play. Brooke Burgess, as Adam, offers the best, most mature work [ have seen him do. On opening night he had already found the American’s gente innocence and deter- mined bravery as well as truthful moments of fear. Further performances will, I hope, solidi- fy the way Burgess allows the audience to sce the insidious way that fear crodes his ’' defences. What makes this a particularly difficult acting challenge is that Adam mostly masks this internal fight as he struggics to continue in the role his mother defined for hins as -“the strong one.” The real drama in the first half of the play takes place not in the rough, profane and occasionally tender daily struggle to survive in the cell, but inside Adam’s head. ’ The journey towards character resolution is often defined (especially by film actors) as “the are.” Burgess faces two challenges in presenting his arc. The first is to let us, the audience, sec inside Adam on a few more "occasions. For example, after the scene in which each prisoner “shoots” an imaginary movie there is silence. Out of that silence comes Michael’s fear- ful “We could be here for a long time, couldn’t we.” There is another silence before Adam repeats a point already made in the scene: that the the film Gandhi was too long. Then he offers the final nvo wi ‘ords of the scene, a repetition: “Very long.” That repetition is not about a movie, it’s about how many months Adam has been in the cell and, more importanty, how he feels about it. Burgess’s second challenge will be to ensure that these glimpses of hopelessness, despair and terror are graduated so that a continuous build towards a climax is con- structed. I offer such analysis partly because it may explain something of the acting process to the casual reader or theatregoer and because I believe Burgess is capable of further enrich- ing what is already a commendable perfor- mance. He would be helped if director Vivanti, was braver with the use of silence. McGuinness offers few stage directions other than “Silence” and this production is good enough that ir would feed strongly trom the occasional extended tension created by the absence of sound. We need to experience a taste of what the prisoners battle. The characters of the emotional Edward and intellectual Michael could easily become caricatures. That they do not is tribute to the skills of Mark Gash and Dave MeIntosh. > Martin Millerchip Meintash gives Michael the somewhat aticcted voice of an academie pedant and it occa- sionally obscured my under- standing of what his character was really feeling. Michael's journey runs counter to thar of Adam as he finds strength by acknowledging and accepting his tear. ‘There were moments on open- ing night when | didn’t believe MelIntosh’s fear, but the inner sadness and outer dignity of his lonely Michael were ulti- mately affecting. Gash’s Edward apparently changes the least. Edward provides much of the life in the cell and Gash carries much of the energy, or pace, of the play. It’s a performance that, like Burgess’s, is the best Pve seen him do. However, | wanted to know more clearly w hether Edward is changed by his experience. That he learns to move beyond rol- crance, to acceptance and even love of his fellows is obvious. Whether he learns anything about himself is less so. Again, I wish Vivant had had the courage to lengthen and hold the final tender moment between Michael and Edward. Michael has told the story of how the bravest men sometimes Behave like women. Spartan soldiers, he said, combed each other's hair before going to baetic. The enemy laughed at such effeminate behavior but the Spartans won the battle. When Edward leaves the cell for the final time he first combs Michael's hair before offering the comb to Michael and bowing his head. The moment is so full of love and unspoken acknowledgement of how far they have come from their first Instinctive antipathy thar it deserves much more than the tentative, even cursory, treatment I saw. Alun Macanulty’s set design man- ages to transform Hendry Hall’s stage — no mean feat — and Vivanti sensi- bly uses low light levels throughout. In fact, the realin of the senses was so well realized I wondered whether smells might be possible. Two more quibbles. I was starded and annoyed by the house lights at intermission, resenting the break in tension. So much so that I asked for a copy of the script to see whether one is called for by McGuinness. It is not. However, as] returned to my seat 1 realized the actors had remained imprisoned on the stage and thar the beer in my hand represented in a small way one of the fears of the prisoners: that their plight would be forgotten as the world continued on its way. So, if that experience was intended, perhaps the choice is valid. However, the voice-over at the end listing the imprisonment and fate of real Arab hostages is just plain wrong. We know hostages were taken, thar some were executed. But Sosmeone Who'll Watch Over Ale is only political at one level. Theatre is not documentary. It moves from the particular to illuminate a truth by means of art. Give the author the power to do that. : [he WHALE WATCHING PACKAGE YOU'VE BEEN NATTING FOR... TOFI INO . Luxuriow Ceanfront . * accommodation ¢ * 65° glass bottom cruiser * * Zodiacs qovav1-800-333-4604 F WiCKANDNNISH, ~ INN | Good ima May 13/98 ose ‘en The recitation might conceivatly work at the begianing of the play, but at the end it under- mines the resoludon of theme that McGuinness has so Cleverly crafted. For make no mistake. This play is nor about imprisonment, fear, hate or bravery -— though it encompasses ail those things. It is about acceptance. The acy veptarice of cach other, the accep- tance of ard mercy for oneselr, ang, finally, the acceptance of one’s fate. “Word bith ful arcad,” says Michael in old english — Fate is fate. Or as arabs might say: Kismet. Performances of Samcone Who'll Watch Over Me have been suspended this NEWS photo Cindy Goodman BROOKE Burgess battles his demons in Someone Wio’ll Watch Over Me at Hendry Hall. week while actor Dave McIntosh recovers bis voice. North Vau Players will offer three extra performances at Presentation House May 14-16 after the Theatre B.C. sone fes- tival. Next Friday Curtain Call will preview twa other local productions competing for the right to represent the North Shore at the provincial finals: Deep Cove Stage’s I Hate Hamlet and Presentation House Production’s The Comedy of Errors. Roth shows are presently running at their respective theatres. ercou Ts eesaee arthritis or osteoporosis? $19°* 273 Lonsdale AveBrd St,.N. Van. SARBER SHOP Rass $9 5°9 80's 360's Glucosamine Sulfate 500 Free Delivery of Prescriptions ANDERSONS PHARMACY ror-sat -- 288-5271 | Economically Priced — .. $9 kids/sentors (65) $11 mea Tues-Sat 9-5:30 pm ~ TUL East 2nd Street, N. Van 988-1412. 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