A young writer struggles with a new script, trying various scenarios while coping with the sometimes trenchant advice of his male partner. So, at the beginning of Daniel MacIvor’s one-act play we seem to be entering intriguing dramatic territory about the troubled processes of creation. More layers emerge in the apparent form of projected scenes from the script being prepared. There are a couple of splendid sequences about a man facing a frightening medical diagnosis, one degenerating into a furious confrontation with his doctor, the other a painful session with a grown daughter who really doesn’t want to be brought into closer intimacy with her dad, especially if he may be suffering a terminal illness.

Such scenes demonstrate this playwright’s gift for strong naturalistic dialogue and persuasive characterization. But over-all, the material doesn’t connect. MacIvor has this habit of coming up with strong narrative and thematic lines, which he then proceeds to clutter up by going off on unnecessary tangents employing extraneous material. Ultimately, In On It something of a mess, although the production has its moments, and contains some good performances from people who cannot be identified because no cast list is supplied.

In On It

By Daniel MacIvor

Too Much Sugar Productions, Ottawa

Arts Court Theatre

Linda Webster is a powerful and enigmatic presence in this play about a rich guy who launches a lengthy money-for-hire relationship with an attractive hooker. Sterling Lynch, teetering between jitters and the kind of self-confidence that comes from material security and macho entitlement is the guy. But it’s Webster, superb at communicating through silence, her smile as inscrutable at times as the Mona Lisa’s, who really wins our attention. She’s the one who really does know when fantasy is bleeding into reality. The play doesn’t work, but it can intrigue.

Autoerotic, produced by Tangelico, Ottawa

By Sterling Lynch

Directed by Wayne Current

Featuring Sterling Lynch and Linda Webster

Arts Court Library

A confession: I left after ten minutes, quickly sceptical of those promotional blurbs offering a “breathtaking” double bill that would “hypnotize, captivate, and surprise” me from beginning to end. The beginning was enough to turn me off. The main impression was of a man and woman dragging each other around the stage, showing off their talents as physical contortionists, and exhibiting a dutiful responsiveness to the dull choreography imposed on them. This is the sort of thing that gives performance art — and fringe festivals — a bad name.

Damaged Goods: Why Bother?

Produced by YouMeAnd EverythinginBetween

By Jocelyn Todd

Arts Court Theatre

The title of this piece holds promise. But the end result yields zero dividends. Evan Walsh is a personable enough presence on stage, but the deceased grandfather’s journals that form the basis for this show are pretty insubstantial. Intended to be evocative of a past culture, they are for the most part dull. Indeed, Walsh himself tells us that there’s not much there, thereby leading us to ask — so what’s the point? There are unsuccessful attempts to juxtapose his Newfoundland roots with his present big-city existence, there are moments of emotion that don’t really jell with anything else, there is clumsy staging. And there is no compelling reason for this purposeless piece to be existing at all.

Written and Performed by Evan Walsh

Arts Court Library

Photo: Maria Vartanova

“I think it must be a comedy of some kind,” whispered the bewildered playgoer who had been sitting next to me. She was wrong.

But it’s understandable she might make such an observation following the opening-night performance of Ottawa Little Theatre’s deplorable production of Dangerous Corner.

By the second act, this was clearly not an audience gripped by the psychological suspense inherent in J.B. Priestley’s 1932 play. Instead, titters throughout the house reflected a growing uncertainty about how to respond to the shrill and hollow melodramatics being enacted on stage. And when it was finally time for the climactic offstage gun shot, the dramatic currency of Priestley’s neatly constructed piece had been so devalued that this moment had about as much dramatic impact as the fizzle of a damp firecracker.

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