Night Sky: Production drags on despite some good performances

When words are the primary currency, a play about the protagonist’s loss of words is destined to be a major challenge.

Add to this the continuing parallelism between black holes in the cosmos and the jumble in the brain of an aphasic patient and the problems associated with Susan Yankowitz’s 1991 play Night Sky are multiplied.

She apparently wrote the script as a tribute to her mentor (and the director of the premiere in New York) Joseph Chaikin, who suffered aphasia following a stroke during open-heart surgery. He imposed three conditions on her script: that the heroine should be a woman; the aphasia should be the result of a car accident [big bang?] and that Night Sky should focus on astronomy.

Yankowitz complied and the result is almost a how-to manual for family and friends responding to someone with aphasia. Worthy as this may be, it is somewhat low in entertainment value, even if the brain and the cosmos are the last two remaining mysteries in the universe, as scientist Stephen Hawking claimed.

The Kanata Theatre production, directed by Alain Chamsi, appropriately sets the scene with a series of shots of the night sky. The return to earth is less successful. It begins at the tail end of a lecture by astronomy professor, Anna (Tania Carrière) — standing behind a lectern that looks as though it could stand a coat of paint.

The next scene — a flash of tense domesticity accompanied by a cacophony of sounds as Anna’s opera-singer lover rehearses and her teenage daughter works on French homework — is as distracting to the audience as to Anna, who rushes out and crashes into the vehicle that changes her life.

From here, Night Sky makes its choppy progress through a series of short scenes, with distressingly long blackouts between several of them to inhibit such flow as the script offers.

Despite a couple of strong performances, particularly from teenager Alexandra Dunlop, totally believable as Anna’s teenage daughter, and a competent portrayal of Anna from Carrière, as well as some interesting content, the show grinds along very slowly. Such factors as some unflattering costuming and a lack of chemistry between Carrière and her partner (Allan Ross) as well as the difficulties with the script add to the discomfort zone.

The Kanata Theatre production of Night Sky continues to February 14, 2015.

 

Night Sky

By Susan Yankowitz

Kanata Theatre

 

Director: Alain Chamsi

Asst. director: Steve Truelove

Set: Rom Frigon

Lighting: Sudarsan Narasimhan

Sound: Tom Kobolak

Costumes: Marilyn Valiquette, Eufron Williams, Saundra Eaves

 

Cast:

Anna………………………………………………….Tania Carrière

Daniel…………………………………………………Allan Ross

Jennifer……………………………………………….Alexandra Dunlop

Bill……………………………………………………Harold Swaffield

Speech therapist et al………………………………….Shelley-Jean Harrison

Aphasic patient et al…………………………………Cheryl Zimmer

Salesperson et al………………………………………Julia Koppernaes