THEATRE REVIEW: BETHUNE IMAGINED
17 Nov'10

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 2.5 out of 5

To refresh your memory: Alexander the Great conquered most of the known world, Henry VIII launched one of the largest branches of the Christian faith and, say what you will about him, Bill Clinton presided over what just might prove to be the economic golden years of America. Yet, too many of us know more about Hephaestion, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Kathryn Howard, Katherine Parr and Monica Lewinsky (to drop those eight names into a single sentence for what well may be the first time in history), than we do about all those other achievements.

So, it should come as no surprise that, in attempting to tell us more about the life of Norman Bethune -- hero of the Chinese revolution and more recently, a Canadian icon as well -- playwright/director Ken Gass looks to the love life of the now-legendary humanitarian. What is surprising, however, is just how dull he makes that love life seem, despite its colourful hue. The play in question is called BETHUNE IMAGINED and it opened Thursday on the mainstage of the Factory Theatre, where Gass serves as artistic director.

The Bethune imagined here is a Bethune in transition. Having been wounded during the First World War, he has returned to Canada, completed his medical studies, made a visit to Russia, and when we meet him (as played by Ron White), he is juggling a medical career with a career as a social activist. Not to mention, he's also dealing with a drinking problem and the demands of not one, but three good women, all the while keeping an eye on events in Spain, where a civil war is raging.

Those women are, in order of appearance (in the play, if not his life): Marion Dale Scott (played here by Irene Poole), Margaret Day (played by Sascha Cole), and Frances Penney (played by Fiona Byrne).

The artistically driven Scott, despite her open marriage to Canadian poet and philanderer Frank Scott, refuses to consummate what started out as a ship-board romance with Bethune, although she is content to play a constant role in his existence, as he does in hers. Day, meanwhile, is an idealistic ingenue who arrives at Bethune's door one night determined to lose her virginity, a chore to which he is prepared to devote himself with an alacrity that far exceeds the task at hand. Penney, for her part, is not merely the ex-Mrs. Bethune, but the ex-ex-ex, having married and then divorced him twice in what can only be described as an excess of ambivalence, despite the obvious affection they still feel for each other.

Into this potent mix of booze and hormones, throw a good measure of social conscience and political angst and you should have an evening of riveting theatre. But it isn't. While everyone in the cast does his or her level best -- and, believe me, that's an impressive level -- BETHUNE IMAGINED just never gets inside the imagination.

Although White is an impressive, even charismatic performer, he fails to offer up any compelling reason for the obsession these women share. Why they put up with him and his soul-searching about the Spanish Civil War and whether or not he should be suffering there instead of living the good life in Montreal remains largely a mystery.

And really, that's little more than fair, for frankly, under Gass's direction and despite some hard work from all three actresses, their characters seem more anchored to Bethune's Montreal apartment (designed by Marian Wihak) by Gass's script, than by any perceivable bonds of affection or even lust. That Bethune will go on to greater things is, fortunately, a matter of history, and a good thing, for in focusing on the tawdry details of his life, Gass leaves what made him great to the imagination.