Tough: George Walker’s battle of the sexes becomes electrifying theatre
George Walker’s Tough, presented by the students of the Algonquin College Theatre Arts programme was an impressive evening that allowed three talented young people, under the excellent direction of Mary Ellis, to bring extremely sensitive performances to the stage! Originally produced in Vancouver but written in 1992, Tough involves Tina and her 19 year old boyfriend Bobby, who are in the middle of an energetic confrontation in a playground littered with garbage. The set emphasizes the confusion and material difficulties of these individuals. Tina is accompanied by her tough talking and aggressive girlfriend Jill and together, both women verbally assault Bobby, always controlling their tempers so they won’t go completely overboard and “kill” him. They bully the young man, accuse him of being a coward, a wimp and a cheat, while Bobby, appearing to be in fragile health, tries to defend himself. As we quickly learn , he did have a moment of indiscretion with another girl at a party that set off the fight but the discussion takes on a new urgency when we learn that Tina is pregnant and she is hoping Bobby will react in a kinder more responsible way.
The news makes Bobby flip out. He cannot deal with all this. No one is at fault really, no one is to blame. Bobby is an immature young man who is not yet sure what he wants in life. He is limited by his physical weaknesses and family surroundings that do not give him any support. Actor Mitchel Johnson elicited all our compassion, our sympathy and our understanding as he is badgered and pushed about by the girls , Jill especially, who are infuriated by his lack of support for Tina. We see how Tina (Cynthia Guard), in spite of herself, keeps hounding and pushing her boyfriend to do the right thing by her own standards. Johnson elicits our sympathy because he avoids any overacting and he constantly heightens the status of his performance by the way he projects an underlying sensitivity . There are moments when Tina appears to be worried about his health but her raging anger always manages to overflow and she too, while never overacting, gave a most believable performance that was grounded in the logic of her situation. Cynthia Guard, who nuanced her melodic voice and the rhythm of her delivery, brought out all the variations and emotional nuances in her text. For example, the moment when she describes the single mother waiting for the bus in the sweltering heat, with her baby slung over her shoulder , showed us that she was in fact projecting herself in that fateful situation that she could barely bring herself to face. That monologue was particularly powerful.
Jill, played by a smart, strutting Catherine Valcy with a know it all smile, a university student and best friend of Tina, became an almost heartless feminist, a most modern version of the no nonsense girl who is ready to go to almost any extreme to assert the agency of women who face problems with men. She was so convincing she became a scary icon, the emerging castrating female who might eventually terrify the whole male population on campus.
Walker has put interesting human beings into this nerve wracking threesome and the conflict creates high tension as they battle it out. The result is good theatre although I did feel that after Bobby’s first exit, just over an hour into the play, the dialogue began sounding repetitive and nothing much was accomplished after that.
Nevertheless, the big advantage of this show was the fact that the play dealt with a world that was close to these students. The characters spoke the language of the young people in the cast. They presented issues that could very well have been their own. The choice of a play that allowed the students to almost be themselves was clearly one of the major benefits of the evening when we see how Cynthia Guard (Tina), Mitchel Johnson (Bobby) and Catherine Valcy (Jill) are so completely relaxed with Walker’s language and with the emotional situations, that they are able to take the time to reflect on the interpretation and the performance of their roles. Obviously, director Mary Ellis worked closely with them on the text but clearly, the choice of play is of the utmost importance when it concerns a theatre exercise involving young people who do not yet have vast amounts of experience. This time, Algonquin hit the jackpot!
A lively and heartbreaking encounter that brings students face to face with the multiple realities of their daily lives. Theatre does serve a purpose and this play shows us how that happens.
Tough continues until March 15 (2pm) at the Algonquin College Theatre, Call 613-727-4723 ext. 5784.