Paul Rainville and Eric Coates. Photo: Andrew Alexander

Money and sex are the driving forces for the flawed individuals in George F. Walker’s newest dark comedy/farce, currently receiving its world premiere at the Great Canadian Theatre Company.

Then, a close encounter with death flips the self-awareness switch for the wealthy Michael, who aims to find redemption by giving most of his fortune away. Emotional imbalance can be the only motivation for such an action, fears his grasping wife, Judy, who rushes him to a couples’ counseling session with her psychiatrist/lover, Stan. As depicted, both before and after he is stripped down to his underwear, Stan is the most incompetent psychiatrist on the planet.

Meanwhile, the private detective/born-again Christian/hit man that Judy has hired to spy on Michael consults with Michael’s university-educated prostitute friend and occasional sex partner, Lianne. (Along the way, Michael also hires the same detective to spy on Judy, while Lianne employs him to kill her.)

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This is War
Great Canadian Theatre Company/Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre
Reviewed Thursday, Jan. 6 by Patrick Langston for the Ottawa Citizen

Why do I do anything?” asks Tanya Young, one of the characters in Hannah Moscovitch’s bleak and troubling This is War. “To distract myself for two minutes,” she answers herself, the words —like a line from a Samuel Beckett play — telescoping the futility, the confusion, the emotional disconnection that is her situation: that of a Canadian soldier in the volatile region of Panjwaii, Afghanistan circa 2008.

Master Corporal Young (Sarah Finn) is one of a Canadian Forces quartet stationed there. Also present is the young, wide-eyed recruit from Red Deer, Alt. Jonny Henderson (Drew Moore). He’s got a thing for Tanya. …

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