Inescapable: A Guilt Edged Winner

This is a consistently funny and dazzlingly creative piece about two middle-aged guys and a mysterious box that contains a sinister toy — but is it really a toy? Maybe it’s a time machine. In any event the object tests their friendship in unexpected ways, frightens the bejeebers out of them and seems to have trapped them in a time warp. Dockery, all flailing arms and legs, is terrific as the guy who’s plunged into gibbering neurosis by this item — plucked, we are repeatedly told, from his own closet. Jon Paterson is the buddy who has increasing difficulty maintaining his equilibrium in the face of all this angst. Together these actors manage the crisp, ping-pong dialogue with comic agility — and bolster it with memorable body language.

This an entertainment rooted in the absurdist tradition. There’s Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco and N.F, Simpson, plus smidgeons of Peter Cook and Harold Pinter from the days when they wrote review sketches. As well, there should be a doff of the hat to Bill Murray and Groundhog Day. A winner all the way.

Inescapable by Martin Dockery

From RibbitRePublic, Vancouver

Arts Court Courtroom