I can do nothing but apologise for how ridiculously late this review is coming out. I have a backlog of reviews stretching back the past couple months that I'm going to be finishing and shooting out over the next few days, and they'll end up on the blog somewhat out of chronological order. I have no excuses, but the best I can do is get them out now.
Better Living is a peculiar play. I went in knowing nothing about it, except that it comes from the mind of notable Canadian playwright George F. Walker, who has a talent for taking the less savoury aspects of society and churning them into his own sort of poetry. He takes characters who are deeply flawed and cast aside by society, yet still clinging to hope. This play comes out of that idea; part of the "looking for the light" phase, as Natasha Martina points out in her director's notes. It is an exploration of the madness of modern living, and in that tradition, it is a mad play.
We meet a poor Toronto family in a dilapidated home at a very strained moment in their lives. The matriarch Nora has gone off the deep-end and begun work expanding their basement for unclear reasons and without any skill or experience in construction. The youngest daughter Gail is in a mixed-up rebellious phase, shacking up with rocker (but not really) dude Junior and loudly announcing her plans to drop out of community college in the hopes that someone will care enough to talk her out of it. Middle daughter Mary Ann is an emotional wreck returning home after a failed marriage, while eldest daughter Elizabeth is on her way to becoming a lawyer and interested in putting her past as far behind herself as possible. Their lives are shaken up when their estranged father returns home to rule the roost once again, and starts spinning a web of manipulation. To make matters worse, Nora is still convinced her husband is dead, and thinks this new stranger merely bears a striking resemblance.
The story takes plenty of odd turns as home life for the dysfunctional family as their home situation becomes cult-like. Loyalties split, relationships fracture, and Nora becomes more and more deluded. Throughout the story, the strange renovations in the basement remain in the centre. Nora's attempt to create something good on her own merits is hijacked by her old husband Tom, who has grand visions for the "sanctuary" (from what and for what is not entirely certain). His indomitable presence infects the lives of everyone in the family, re-sculpting them accordingly; but the one thing that is endlessly troubling is that you're never really sure if the family is better or worse off with him there.
Better Living is a peculiar play, as I said before. The metaphorical curtain opens on a very intricate set (probably the most intricate domestic set I've seen since Jim Guedo's Rabbit Hole) of a house that is either half-complete or half-fallen apart. That sets the tone for a play about broken relationships and broken people, where you're trying to figure out if they are in the process of pulling together, or about to go completely nuts. But the intricacies are there, characters building levels upon levels; mostly we see a certain side of them, but like the open walls of the house we get glimpses into their internal workings. As the house continues to get battered in the hopes of building something better, characters are also smashed and mangled, but leading on with the hope that there is something better waiting ahead.
With a cast of 7, this is one of smaller Greystone productions, like Eurydice. But unlike Eurydice, where characters were separated into distinct strata, in Better Living there is a much more even ebb and flow. We enter the story tangentially, starting with a conversation between youngest daughter Gail and her uncle Jack. It takes time for the characters and the scene to settle into a groove, so the first few minutes don't feel right, like they don't fit anywhere. But as all the characters flow in and converge on the centre, the cast builds to something complex and intriguing.
Kyle Kuchirka plays Junior, the shiftless slacker who turns into an eager workhorse. I don't know Kyle personally, but he seems well-suited for this role. He is full of energy, combining rock & roll slacker with a twist of bright-eyed innocence. He convincingly plays dumb, but attacks every scene with lovable commitment. Wade Klassen as uncle Jack, the priest, is a bit like a walking IV of cynicism. He's the least engaged of all characters, and mostly he is content to let scenes happen around him, but his dry, sardonic wit always adds some black humour to the scene. Then Kashtin Moen as the estranged father Tom is gruff and indomitable, grounded and confident in the way he handles the stage. While he spends his time playing a dour, emotionally abusive jackass, he injects the character with just enough folksy charm that you feel yourself slightly drawn towards him.
But it's the women who run the show. Lauren May is the youngest sister Gail, bright and perky but with a rebellious streak. She is still untested, and has a bit of trouble dropping into the character, but she maintains a good level of energy throughout the play. Jalisa Gonie is the timid middle sister Mary Ann. She is reminiscent of Alyson Hannigan with her scattered confidence and general anxiety. She spends a lot of time off to the side looking fearful, but stays connected the whole time; and when she does step forward, her innocence and out-of-sorts personality drive a lot of humour. Then Anna Mazurik is dynamite as Elizabeth, the oldest daughter. She struts her lawyery confidence early on, but demonstrates a real fire once Tom is back in the picture. She has a lot of control over her own stage presence, whether burning bright or smouldering quietly, and she handles a range of emotions deftly. There were some character issues that did not sit so well with me, like how Gail and Elizabeth both experience major character reversals in the second act, though they don't seem to follow from anything in particular. But I assign that problem more to the text than the performance.
And naturally, Elizabeth Nepjuk steals the show. She plays the grand old matriarch, Nora, obsessed with home renovations. She is the source of a lot of the comedy in the play with her excellent timing and stage intuition. But she also carries many of the more poignant and philosophical moments. Nora is, to be blunt, totally nuts, and her severe mental discombobulation provides a lot of humour; but Nepjuk's performance does not lampoon these mental issues. She gives the character a bright-eyed dignity, and the sense that her disconnection from conventional reality gives her a sort of clarity that the other characters lack, embroiled in earthly concerns.
This is a more reserved play for Natasha Martina, lacking the movement choreography she is best known for in the department. But it definitely contains her personality. There is a subtler direction of movement going on, the way it embodies the state of the characters at various points. The movement is also played for humour, like the attempt at moving a giant wooden beam down to the basement. And the whole domestic chaos of Better Living is imbued with Natasha's playful spirit. It creates a skewed sense of reality, not to the extent of Ends of the Earth or Attempts on her Life, but something just odd enough that we can laugh at it, yet feel enlightened by it.
Better Living is a peculiar play, yes. It makes some jumps and turns that I can't find an adequate explanation for, and it's abound with more than a couple inconsistencies. But the production pulls together very well, with a tremendous cast that has enough chemistry that it can nail all the dark humour and create a fun play.
