Ashes to Ashes: Unicorn Theatre does justice to the haunting work

On particularly dark days when I have binged too long on depressing world news or, as I am wont to do, taken a tumble down the darker holes of historical reading, a rather grim mood settles over me. In such cheerless moments, optimism becomes harder to summon and thoughts about the way we live and our never-ending ability to hurt one another start spinning. At first glance, Harold Pinter’s Ashes to Ashes seems like the wrong play for me. A layered, disturbing work that touches obliquely on the Holocaust and, by extension, all of human history, it seems downright depressing. However, as horrifying as references to “babies being ripped out of their mother’s hands” by one of the main characters are, plays like Ashes to Ashes are a secret weapon against depression and pessimism. This is because Ashes to Ashes, while touching on the horrors of history, is at its core a play about our ability, whether innate or through an artistic medium such as theater, to empathize with our fellow humans, even if we haven’t suffered as they have. The more ability we have to understand others, the less of a chance there is that we will continue being the victims of history. Directed by University of Ottawa MFA Directing Candidate James Richardson and supervised by Dragana Varagić, Unicorn Theater’s production is haunting and stays with you long after you’ve left the theater.

Two characters, Rebecca and Devlin, confront each other in a lamp lit room. Their relationship is intentionally murky (is he a lover? therapist?) as he interrogates her about a violent, sexually dominant past lover. Rebecca’s answers are elliptical and often seem meandering. She answers his questions with more questions or non-sequiturs. Of course, when critiquing a production of Ashes to Ashes, it is imperative to remember that this isn’t a play about characters, but about ideas. Devlin and Rebecca are concrete entities which serve to house abstract ideas. Devlin, as mannered as he is, represents the aggressor through his relentless questioning. History for him is something entirely separate from himself, something to be compartmentalized, academically understood, and dragged from Rebecca if necessary. Rebecca, on the other hand, represents history’s empathetic subject. She identifies with both its victims and aggressors through her empathy, becoming an echo for its horrors as she slips in and out of memories that strongly suggest the deportation and interning of Jews in concentration camps during the Holocaust. Rebecca’s experience culminates as she is transformed into one of the women whose children are torn away on the train platform, while Devlin’s aggression grows until his apex echoes the violent actions of her former lover.

Director James Richardson has managed to produce the feeling, so integral to all Pinter plays and especially this one, of impending, creeping doom that leaves you with a lingering feeling in the pit of your stomach and makes you shudder hours after. Pinter is so layered that you could spend hours dissecting him, but it’s the visceral experience that is so important in a play this abstract. It’s not an easy feat and Richardson has put up more than a fair fight to grapple with the material. The non-sequiturs, long pauses, and repetitions in the dialogue are filled with meaning under his hand and he is certainly not afraid to use silence to a maddening and rightfully discomforting degree. For the most part, he is successful in being our guide to the emotions and inner world of the play. He also pays attention to detail and uses Rebecca and Devlin’s movements and stances as another map to meaning. Thus, Rebecca, a brilliantly nuanced, heartbreaking Kristina Watt, standing in front of the window with her hands stiffly and awkwardly away from her body becomes a statement in itself.

Richardson also presents an interesting addition in his interpretation of Devlin with mixed results. Attila Clemann uses facial expression to great effect, wielding its power to bring us along on Devlin’s realizations and frustrations. The last few moments of Ricahrdson’s Ashes to Ashes sits on the shoulders of Clemann. Yes, Devlin can be an aggressor, but, according to Richardson, he’s not an aggressor without hope. In the last moments, as Rebecca’s vision of her experience on the train tracks crystalizes, realization slowly dawns on Devlin and he crumples below its weight, muscle by muscle, limb by limb. The stage fades to blackout, leaving the audience with a final picture of his horrified face, broken down and defeated.

This rather unorthodox interpretation would have been even more powerful had Devlin been colder and more subtly aggressive earlier on. Instead, he is academic and full of restraint, to a fault. The aggression simmering below the surface isn’t evident enough so that, when he mirrors the actions of Rebecca’s former lover, it comes as a surprise to the audience. Up until that point, he comes off as a mildly annoyed, confused, and slightly jealous but caring lover. Clemann and Richardson’s interpretation doesn’t leave much room for the aggressive act that is one of the culminations and points of his character and his defeat is made less by it.

Despite its depressing content, Ashes to Ashes is actually a play full of hope and belief. It believes in human strength to overcome the seemingly endless cycle of human horror. The answer doesn’t lie in military operations, guns, harsh words, or bruises. It lies in the opposite: empathy. Yes, the way to salvation is painful. It’s not pleasant discovering in ourselves the potential to be a victim, even less so an aggressor. Recognizing this, though, makes us all the more determined not to become either. James Richardson’s direction pushes you in this direction. At times, it’s distressing. There are moments in the production when you find yourself silently begging for a pause to end, but those are also some of the strongest, most effective moments. Richardson’s job here was to make us confront something ugly within ourselves and he achieved that. With his production, he helped to temporarily transform us into something strange and ugly, ultimately helping us to emerge from it more human than before.

Ashes to Ashes by Harold Pinter

Directed by: James Richardson

MFA Supervisor: Dragana Varagić

 

Cast

Devlin: Attila Clemann

Rebecca: Kristina Watt

 

Creative Team:

Set Designer: Cullen McGrail

Lightning Designer: Jingwei Zhang

Sound Designer: Shannon Rawn

Costume Designer: Heidi Spicer

Video Consultant and Programming: George Bamforth

Stage Manager: Brittnay Johnson