Nestruck on Theatre: Easing yourself back to live theatre? You might need A Tonic for Desperate Times

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I went out to see live, in-person shows in Toronto last week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. I haven’t had a packed schedule like that as a theatre critic since the pandemic started.

In short, my life is getting back to “normal.” A challenge for me going forward will be remembering that my schedule of theatregoing, which has never been truly “normal,” is even more atypical than that of the average theatregoer now.

Most of the shows I’m seeing begin with a producer or cast member coming out on stage to great applause and saying something such as: “Welcome back to live theatre!” I expect that will continue for some time.

A Tonic for Desperate Times, a new collective creation by Toronto’s Theatre Gargantua, is a good show for spectators who are still feeling uncomfortable going out in the world but want to ease themselves back into live performances. Its stated goal in an opening song is to provide a little “hope for the hopeless.”

The show’s five performers – Heather Marie Annis, Sierra Haynes, Alexandra Lainfiesta, Michael Gordon Spence and Nabil Traboulsi – each take turns sharing stories about something unsettling or upsetting that has happened in their lives. Later in the show, they complete those stories by sharing a moment where they felt hopeful after their most desperate times had passed.

In the case of Traboulsi, a Lebanese-Canadian actor born and raised in Beirut, he first talks about the traumatic experience of witnessing the gruesome aftermath of a car bombing in his youth.

Then, later, he recalls what it was like to first meet his nephew – who was born on the exact same day as the Beirut port explosion in 2020. This isn’t a simplistic healing encounter, but the future does open up for Traboulsi in that moment.

Other experiences the actors relate will resonate widely: encountering racism, the challenges of being a new immigrant, dealing with or caring for depressed or sick loved ones.

In between the individual stories, there are musical numbers, jerky choreographed movement and projections that fly high above the stage of St. Anne’s Parish Hall or wrap around boxes hanging from a tree made of metal scaffolding bars.

Director Jacquie P.A. Thomas’s production doesn’t cohere entirely – it feels like bits and pieces of things trying to fit together and make a whole. But I found its fragmented nature, whether designed or accidental, touching at a time when we are trying to pick up the bits and pieces of society and fit them back together.

It’s more of a reflection of our times than a tonic for them. The show continues until Nov. 14.

Two of the live shows I saw last week included elements of XR – the catch-all term for virtual, augmented and mixed reality. I very much recommend Draw Me Close at Soulpepper to anyone interested in seeing the potential in the integration of these nearly new technologies into theatre.

And, if you’re a theatre or performance practitioner interested in this emerging field, the Performance and XR Conference 2021 runs Nov. 13 to 20, a presentation of the Single Thread Theatre Company in Kingston and the Electric Company Theatre in Vancouver.

What’s new or opening this week:

• In Edmonton … The Fiancée, a new farce by the actor Holly Lewis, has opened at the Citadel Theatre just in time for Remembrance Day. It concerns a woman named Lucy who gets engaged to three different men during the Second World War because, “No one should have to go overseas without someone to come home to.” Artistic director Daryl Cloran – who is not engaged to Lewis, but is, in fact, married to her – directs. It’s on to Nov. 28.
• In Vancouver … Emilia, a play by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm about the “Dark Lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets originally commissioned for the Bard’s Globe in London, is on stage at United Players from Nov. 12 to Dec. 5. That’s a community theatre company, but the production is directed by the well-regarded Lois Anderson – and you’re highly unlikely to see this play featuring an all-female cast of 17 anywhere else anytime soon.
• In Toronto … Crow’s Theatre opens Zorana Sadiq’s Mixtape, the theatre company’s second show of the season, on Friday. It’s described as “part memoir, part scientific inquiry, and part love song to listening,” and is directed by artistic director Chris Abraham. The show runs until Nov. 28. Look for my review next week.

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