Ottawa Fringe 2011. Walk. Why this Play?

A subject matter that has attracted social workers and social scientists of all disciplines from around the world:  research into the world of the sex trade, the sexual slavery of women and the trafficking of women. The subject matter, which is not new, has been the object of plays, films and many studies. Yet, in spite of all the interest and the outrage, the practice continues.

Since that is the case, what is the aim of another play about the same subject? What does this team want to capture. What do they want us to feel or see or understand?  That is the real question here. Why this play?

The answers are embedded in the show itself.   The play shows two parallel worlds. The world of those who want to understand the phenomenon by making a play, a scenario or a movie about it.  The playwright on stage, (Teri Loretteo) wants to help these women but has difficulty talking to them. Sister Catherine Anne (Beverley Wolfe) wants to help one woman in particular, the Nigerian Celestine who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and who is trying to regularise her immigration status. There is also Peter the filmmaker, (Mo McIlwain) who wants to focus on the men in charge, on power , on money, all ingredients of  a good script that will put bums on seats. However, the subject matter proves to be too much for him. And he can’t hack it.

While these three work out their problems, the trafficked women are in their own world on the other side of the stage.

They tell us their real stories. They re-enact the horror of their daily lives in the brothels, in Ottawa apparently, although they have been shipped around the world like so much cargo.   We see the contrast between the reality of their lives and the statistics and scientific research that has informed the ideas about them that the playwright and filmmaker want us to believe they have.

Each individual (and there are 9 characters played by 8 actors) is an enormous amalgamation of a complex set of beliefs, of life experiences, of desires. One feels that the play is much too dense, and even overcharged aesthetically   for a one hour event.  As a result, nothing really works except a few exceptional performances that bring out some excellent moments of talent. But as a whole, this show became a bit of a bore.

I assume we were supposed to feel sorry for these women, understand their hellish lives and perhaps realize that even with the best of intentions, professional writers, social workers, police and even philanthropists cannot help them. The milieu is too deeply rooted in organized crime, in big money and in dangerous international bosses.

However, if that is the case, why then did Director Nathalie Fraser-Purdy create a   graceful  mime show to illustrate moments of the lives of these women, showing that it was purely  theatrical performance? . Was this their way of creating critical distance, moving us away from the emotional reality of the story so we would look at the lives of these women in a more rational and less sentimental way?  And yet the stories told by these women only functioned at an emotional level. How could we remain indifferent to these young girls forced into such a hideous life style? All reason was tossed out the window.  So the theatrical strategy made little sense and confused the issue. A mixture of abject sordid realism and a mime show?  Not on your life. Plus this sordid realism seemed much closer to the keyhole  kind of voyeurism that defines the fourth wall. We were watching something that the writer, the filmmaker and sister Catherine Anne were not allowed to see. So we were privileged voyeurs watching a show of victims…I am certain that was not at all the writers intention, or did I sense a certain morbid fascination on the part of the creative team for this world that is not theirs?.

In any case, the  whole thing just did not work.

Several moments were quite good however.  Dina Ibrahim as Celestine,  the traumatized Nigerian girl who had gone through a lot of abuse by her family and many men, gave a very strong   performance.  Anger, fear, hate, disgust, everything vile came oozing out of that rebellious but fearful body and she became clear and believable as a character.  The other women remained empty stereotypes, who too often overacted.   The play might have gained a lot by simply eliminating all the other women. As it was, Celestine was the perfect iconic figure for the suffering of the sexually exploited. Her presence alone would have made the play much more powerful, I also  think they might stop the bongo drums while she is talking. The sound added nothing and sometimes even intereferred with her performance.

Also interesting was Guy Buller who  performed more like  a  dancer than an actor. He moved like a dream. His mime and his movements were beautiful to watch but he was strangely out of place moving gracefully in a setting full of awkward creatures who didn’t know how to move, only to strut in a most ungraceful manner. . The mixture of beautiful, graceful corporeal mime and this ugly situation was not resolved in this staging and the contradictions did not create critical  distance. They created irritation.  They should give it all a lot more thought.

Finally Bev Wolfe’s feisty nun who is committed to helping the women was probably the high point of the show and I also liked the moment when the filmmaker Peter, played by Mo McIlwain who does not appear to have much experience as an actor, had a burst of revolt as he realized he could no longer look at pictures of these girls, who were the same age as his daughter. The situation finally got to him.  That moment was very strong because it showed the evolution of his character from a hard-nosed producer out to make money , to a vulnerable male who couldn’t believe his eyes at the misery he was glimpsing.

It didn’t get to me however because I was not  a character in the play, and as a spectator, I have seen other shows dealing with such question that were much more powerful. The power was usually the result of a poetics of abjection, brought about by a “real” person who talks calmly, almost underplaying her life, thus creating a contrast between the hysterics of the material and a controlled form of  total despair.   Also powerful have been  performances where the situation unravels in strange and disturbing metaphors, but never any artificially over played  realism of the kind we saw in The Walk.   A good example would be recent productions in Canada and in  France of a play by the Franco- African playwright Koffi  Kwahulé called JAZ.

The Walk is confusing in its intent, confusing in its stage aesthetics. It is over directed, over written and unfocussed. I know that this is only a Fringe production but there were professionals in the cast. That fact, plus the nature of the content  and the complexity of the play shows that the author has serious intentions as a playwright.  There is still much work to be done.

The Walk plays at the Arts Court Theatre. Consult the programme on the Fringe web site.

The Walk

By Catherine Cunningham-Huston

Directed by Nathalie Fraser-Purdy

A Production of the Moon Dog Theatre

 

CAST

Celestine                            Dyna Ibrahim

Catherine Anne                 Beverley Wolfe

Stephanie                          Teri Loretto-Valentik

Peter                                    Mo McIlwain

Man/police officer         Guy Buller

Trafficked Women                 Jazmine Companale

Céline Filion

Nadia Gandhi