Sins of the Mother: a play a bit rough around the edges but the production leaves the audience with an excellent impression.
American east coast rugged realism becomes, in the eyes of playwright Israel Horovitz, a family tragedy laced with raunchy bitter humour in a play called Sins of the Mother, which is just as much about the sins of the fathers, the sons, the mothers and all the neighbours. In spite of the almost biblical title, we appear to be much closer to the world of Greek and Latin tragedy, where patricide, matricide, fratricide, adultery lust, hate and cruelty hover over this small American fishing town.
It all takes place in Gloucester Massachusetts which has become a place of moral corruption, where everyone seems to be hiding a terrible secret, but where they all lash out at each other to divert neighbours gazes from the truth.
After many years of absence, young Douggie (Ray Besharah) turns up in the town and the play opens in the union hall where the men gather to go through the ritual of seeking work, so that they can claim their unemployment insurance when they prove that they cannot find employment. Dougie has been away on the west coast, and has lost touch with the town but he is back now, eager to find out more about his mother, Loise Martino, who is dead. He meets four older friends : Bobby, Frankie ,Dubbah and eventually Frankie’s twin brother Philly. Horovitz’s taught dialogues are tough and exciting.
All manner of complex relationships are brutally untangled in this small village where the fishing industry has died, where people try to survive any way they can and were families are intertwined by licit and illicit relationships. It is a degenerate human landscape of violence, love and destructive passions, and a very powerful play.
The structure is at times disconcerting as it takes us on one path and then suddenly veers off in another direction, especially in the second part of the evening. We find ourselves confronted by a murder, and then by a terrible revelation concerning a brutal father and the conflict that has torn a family apart. It does appear however that the ending is a bit too abrupt, and that some of the plot edges need rounding out but that does not change the generally excellent impression left by the play and this production.
One reason for this is that director Paul Dervis has surrounded himself with an excellent cast and the result is, without a doubt, one of the best stagings he has ever done. Jerome Bourgault, well known for his work with director John P. Kelley of Seven-Thirty Theatre, appears completely inhabited by his character Bobby, the older friend who knew the mother and who knows all the family secrets. Bourgault gives the most subtle and real performance as the tortured, loving and conflicted friend. He lived his role, which he slightly underplays, much to his credit, with a strength I could never have imagined from this actor. He was magnificent. Also extremely good was Sean Tucker, who appears as both twin brothers Frank and Philly, the alter- egos who represent the opposite forces at work in this land of moral destruction. Tucker’s characters vibrate with a passion that makes them almost terrifying. And yet humour was never far off.
In all that cauldron of boiling emotions, Doug Phillips’ set design was appropriately simple so that our attention was riveted on the men. Some chairs and tables were sufficient.
What was new however was the way he integrated the winter setting made visible to the audience by the window at the back of the acting space. Because the entrance to the stage is through the back door coming directly in from outside the theatre, the characters made their entrances through the snow, the cold and the night. This unexpected effect of realism added to the already gritty realism that has become the aesthetic hallmark of Dervis’ theatre.
Sins of the Mother plays at the Nathalie Stern Studio, 294 Picton. Call 613-482 0518 for tickets and times. The show plays Friday, Saturday and Sunday through to February 13.