Beirut

Theatre is about vulnerability. A play will not work if the people involved are too restrained. Actors need to be able to put themselves in intimate positions in public spaces, but like with all things, some plays are going to require more vulnerability than others. Beirut is like an exposed nerve ending with a glass of ice water hovering precariously over it.

     This year's Live Five seasons begins with Hectik Theatre's presentation of a crushingly bleak dystopian future and the painful search for love and fulfillment within it. Beirut was penned by New York playwright Alan Bowne back in 1987, in response to the still-mysterious AIDS epidemic (and is all the more tragic in light of the fact that Bowne died from AIDS two years later). It takes place in a non-specific future when the United States (or possibly the whole world) is in the throes of paranoia over a terrifying new disease that is spread through intimate contact. All those who carry the infection are rounded up and sealed inside ghettos to await death. Those who aren't infected are "free" in a sense, but live in fear under constant monitoring, and are forbidden to have sex with anyone. The two characters are Torch and Blue (good 1980s dystopian New York names). Torch is a "P" (for positive) shut away in a ghetto with the other infected waiting for his skin to start falling off. His old flame Blue is still "N" (negative), but she has grown sick of the banal existence outside and has broken into the sick camp to be with Torch.

     Beirut digs deep into its themes of mortality and freedom. It raises the question of what, precisely, makes life worth living. Blue breaks into the ghetto ready to accept a potentially agonising death in exchange for a brief period of what she considers real living. Torch, meanwhile, is ready to send her away, condemning himself to die in solitude, in the interest of saving her from disease. As time goes on, he is forced to choose what he values more: Blue's life or her spirit. Should he grant her happiness in what is tantamount to killing her, or should he save her and let her go on being miserable. Beirut raises the bold and potentially dangerous question of how recklessly we should treat our lives in pursuit of exhilaration. But the outside, illness-free world is made to sound so hopeless and lifeless, we have no choice but to take Blue's side. I feel that is the one weakness in the script; it could have been more ambiguous about the quality of life of the "N"s and gone to a darker place by leaving us to feel more ambivalent about Blue's self-sacrifice.

     The director Kenn McLeod mentioned in his notes that he has been thinking about doing this play for some time, and I can understand why. It is not a production to be mounted lightly. A thorough grokking of the script is bound to take time, then one has to wait for the perfect climate, for the right people to come along who can trust each other intimately. This production requires a lot of trust.

     McLeod created an elegant blend of romance and horror onstage. The set is a dilapidated urban hovel that looks like it belongs to a homeless person squatting in an old warehouse. A single stained mattress is the focal point of the room, surrounded by scenic array of cracked walls and tin cans. At an instant, it feels dirty. But the way the two characters revolve around the makeshift bed gives the set a sense of primal sensuality; this feeling is buttressed by the use of candlelight.

     The pathos of Beirut is grounded in raw, sexual energy. But it never gets exploitative, or even particularly sexy, because this is always an uncomfortable undercurrent stemming from the darkness of the play's story. The actors have to be vulnerable, both physically (they spend the whole play in varying states of undress) and emotionally, but they strike a remarkable balance by maintaining that energy as well as the darkness. The scene gets intimate without ever being too graphic. There are times this balance works better than others. The play opens with a simulated masturbation scene which was on one hand kind of explicit, but on the other hand so cursory that in the effort to avoid getting to graphic it didn't seem at all accurate; it probably could have been framed differently to be less explicit but more convincing. Probably the most deftly handled moment of tension is when a guard (played by Jacob Yaworski, who had to step in last minute but delivers a chilling performance all the same) comes by for an "inspection". It's the most sexually graphic part of the play, all handled in low light, and really drags the sexual energy into its darkest place, leaving the audience horrified and squirming.

     Munish Sharma is Torch. I am not familiar with Sharma's past work, but he definitely brings an air of experience to this play. He portrays the frayed nerve endings of someone who used to have it all together but now finds himself hanging on the precipice. He's endearing in his dreams about life outside the prison; he can bring out little moments of humour throughout. He's powerful, but crumbling. Sharma invigorates Torch with passion worthy of his name, but he can also dial it back to a very soft place.

     I have seen Kate Herriot once previously, in Bottome's Dream, and while I knew she was talented I couldn't have imagined her doing something like this. As Blue, Herriot is fearless. She's fiery. From her pithy comments early on to her impassioned pleas toward the climax, she launches herself into this role. Every moment is connected from the way she explores Torch's room to how she entices him toward her, she is centred in the moment and all of her movements are fluid and natural. She lays so much of herself bare, I can't imagine what her process was, but it comes together seamlessly. She goes out onstage like a firecracker but never loses the feeling of fragility.

     But talking about the two actors separately is only half the story. Beirut never would have worked if they couldn't have worked well together. But Herriot and Sharma are electric. The play is like a skeleton track, and the two of them hurtle down it, head-first, with no fear. Their moments together are so intimate and genuine that it is like the whole theatre dissolves away. But they also play off each other in snappy banter, bouncing between notes of love and anger. There was clearly a lot of trust built into this production, and each actor had to give everything to their stage partner. The end result is elegant, intimate, and smouldering.

     I don't know how well this level of energy could have sustained itself, but coming it at a little under an hour, Beirut keeps its candle burning just as long as it needs to. It doesn't feel at all rushed or cut short, but lies in perfect balance.