The Burden of Self Awareness: A world premiere of George Walker that turns his own theatre on its head.

Photo. Andrew Alexander

George Walker is one of Canada’s most important, most pleasing, most talented and most versatile playwrights. He changes styles, he changes forms he has delved into all manner of writing for the stage, but his fantasies always show a predilection for veiled anger, repressed violence , grade B movies, dysfunctional families and all the stereotypical characters that populate this world. In The Burden of Self Awareness, he has taken the most stereotypical characters of his past detective style theatre- the filthy rich couple, the private eye, the psychiatrist and the call girl – stripped them of all their social and psychological veneer that they must transport with them in order to function in society. Curiously enough, Martin Conboy’s set while elegant and slick did not get that sense of double performance which is put in place, but his lighting was beautiful as always.

The play emerges because suddenly they are free of all that hides their true desires, their true fears, their true insecurities, their deepest and most shameful longings…and there they are in front of us in all their “self-awareness”, their psychic nudity as it were, and the result is chaos for the characters and surprise, titillation and gasps from the the audience! However, this stripped down state becomes a real burden for the on stage world because it creates characters who cannot deal with themselves, who are seething with anger, with rage and with a sense of loss …all except the call girl who remains steadfast, within and without, the remaining strong pillar of this society that is crumbling around her.

As a result we never know what to expect because none of them reacts as they are supposed to according to their usual social roles and its this separation that creates the comedy. An extremely rich fellow (Eric Coates) feels he has to give away his fortune because his guilt about past events has been eating away at him until he feels he doesn’t deserve this good fortune, but then he isn’t sure why. Nothing is clear until he meets the call girl (Samantha Madley) who seems to be the pillar of all these people trying to recentre their lives.

The rich wife (Sarah Macvie) reveals her nasty murderous temper fed by her hunger for money; the psychiatrist (Paul Rainville) is really an insecure libidinous schnook who doesn’t feel he should be advising people about their lives when he can’t even handle his own, and the Private eye (John Koensgen) turns out to be a former TV news anchor who could not stop fantasizing about beautiful women he saw on the screen..And never mind the news.

They have all lost their commonly accepted social persona and thus the audience is constantly confronted with unexpected situations not usually “fitting” the character…Walker is playing games or just fed up and wants to dig down and unmask all these characters drawn from his own theatre whose existence is always a performance within a performance. Now he is going for the deepest truth,  and what a burden, in fact it is such a burden that most of them have to be medicated or visit a psy regularly who  Ironically , turns out to the be the scariest creature of them all.

The play does have Walker’s usually tight and punchy dialogue which keeps it moving at a good pace. However, once one has seized the game, it wears down even though the games become more and more dangerous, and the violence becomes less and less comic. Director Milner has kept it all on a highly comic level which is one way to go about it but, just to vary the mood and remove the monotony, one could also bring the second part (of a 90 minute show) down to a more sinister performance that resembles the film noir scenarios that Walker loves so much. In an y case, this is not yet one of Walkers better plays but there is still time for some revisions which no doubt will come about , especially at the end which suddenly stops, leaving us with a banal sense that the playwright didn’t know what to do at that point.

Luckily there is Paul Rainville whose performance as the imploding psychiatrist caps it all. Always a brilliant actor he is the snivelling, unwilling victim of his profession, completely stressed, strained and in the wrong job obviously, not daring to but finally giving in to those nasty impulses that drive him but that his professional life has taught him to suppress. His libido is in shreds poor guy. Rainville is so funny and his performance gets it all. Walker does not spell out what is happening with each character, it’s the actor’s job to read between the lines and Rainville is a master at that.

John Keonsgen whose role is less demanding and less “colourful” one might say, is also very good as the private eye who can barely control his highly charged fantasies. He was also perfectly convincing and his slippage into that other world he tries not acknowledge was beautifully done as well.

Eric Coates as the confused millionaire gave a more one dimensional portrait, at times slipping on his text. I always felt he was too conscious he was acting, something that his facial expressions especially betrayed. Thus he seemed to give less thought to the interpretation of his lines and that took away from the double sided performance that the others seemed to grasp with much more ease. Sarah Mcvie as the sharp tongued wife, who had evolved from a sweet loving young girl, was the nastiest nightmare one could wish to meet and she is blood curdling but there is not much nuance in her performance. And then there is Lianne the call girl played by Samantha Madley, the only one who is not stripped of her veneer because she is so genuine and full of good common sense.  Thus she  attracts the others towards her as a pillar of strength. Straightforward and strong, she settled in well but then her role was not nearly as demanding as they others. She is probably the author’s alter ego who feels she could solve the problem by getting rid of the wife…well, you will have to see how Walker takes charge at the end.

The audience enjoyed it. The segments with the psychiatrist worked particularly well. I also liked the choice of up beat music that punctuated the atmosphere. But the playwright might still do a bit of tweeking with the text.

The Burden of Self Awareness by George Walker plays until June 22, at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre

Performances are at 8pm, call GCTC for tickets. 613- 236-5192 Box office

Director: Arthur Milner

Set and lighting: Martin Conboy

Sound: Aymar

Costumes: Sarah Waghorn

Cast:

Michael…………….Eric Coates

Phil:………………..John Koensgen

Lianne……………..Samantha Madely

Judy………………..Sarah McVie

Stan………………..Paul Rainville