Is Marion Bridge Really Worth Doing?

It’a difficult to understand the esteem in which Daniel MacIvor’s Marion Bridge is held in some quarters. Even with as solid a production as the one given it by Ottawa’s new Three Sisters Theatre Company, it remains a cliche-ridden excursion into the dreary world of family angst.

That’s not to say that this world isn’t worth exploring dramatically, The stark insights of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night or Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming testify to its continuing validity. But MacIvor’s play has nothing new to say in its portrait pf three sisters in a moment of crisis. And it certainly suffers from overload — as though weighting these siblings down with a catalogue of terrible events in their lives is sufficient to give the whole piece “significance.”

Well, not really. Not when the play’s psychology is pretty shallow, not when the pile-up of revelations starts veering into contrived soap opera. Not with a script afraid to acknowledge that the processes of reconciliation aren’t something that can be neatly brought off in two patently artificial hours of stage time.

The film version of MacIvor’s play was redeemed to a degree by the quality of the performances. The three cast members in the current production at the Gladstone try to perform a similar salvaging operation. Robin Guy is Agnes, the prodigal daughter who returns to the family circle because her mother is dying; it’s a coiled-spring characterization — hard-drinking, resentful and, as we predictably learn, vulnerable. Shawni Pasini’s Theresa tries to offer a nuanced portrait of a woman whose ingrained Catholic discipline is at odds with the crisis of faith that has led her to leave the convent. Cindy Beaton has her touching moments as Louise, the child-like sister who is as addicted to TV as Agnes is to booze.

All these actresses work hard — but so what? The stresses in their relationship might be more worthy of our attention if the characters they portray had convincing interior lives. They don’t. Furthermore, Bronwyn Steinberg’s direction seems understandably stymied by the script’s uneasy juxtaposition of comedy and seriousness. And what an earth can be done about those three monologue sequences — all of which seem entirely dispensable?

The play’s title refers to a place which is supposed to have some kind of cosmic significance in this creaky family charade. And you know, sure as shootin’, that this is where the three sisters will have their moment of reconciliation at the end of the play. Unfortunately it comes across as spiritless and tacked on.

The Three Sisters Theatre Company production of Marion Bridge continues to February 21, 2015.

Marion Bridge

By Daniel MacIvor

Three Sisters Theatre Company

Director: Bronwyn Steinberg

Set: Andrea Steinwand

Lighting: David Magladry

Sound: Robin Guy and Bronwyn Steinberg

Cast:

Agnes……………………………………………….Robin Guy

Theresa……………………………………………..Shawna Pasini

Louise………………………………………………Cindy Beaton

Voice-overs…………………………………………Paul and Vivian Melsness