THEATRE REVIEW: THE BIG LEAGUE
3 FEB/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Considering the number of times we’ve had to endure heartfelt renditions of the whole hockey-as-a-metaphor-for-Canadian-life scenario — as served up by Don Cherry and his ilk — it’s surprisingly refreshing, even liberating, to find the metaphor kicking back. At least, in a theatre-as-metaphor-for-life kind of way.

The name of the play is THE BIG LEAGUE and, six years after it premièred in Manitoba, it finally got around to making its Toronto debut Thursday in a Lorraine Kimsa Theatre For Young People production on the mainstage of the Front Street space. Written by James Durham and given an ebullient production by director Mary Ellen MacLean, THE BIG LEAGUE tells the story of one boy’s experience with what many consider to be Canada’s national sport — but it’s an experience with which a lot of young boys and an increasing number of young girls will no doubt identify for all that.

Like a lot of Canadian kids, young Tommy, played by Simon Rainville, was introduced to skating at age three, and to hockey about 30 seconds later, by his adoring father (Mark McGrinder), who clearly loves the sport just about as much as he loves his quickly hockey-mad son And for years, father and son have shared a growing passion for the sport — but by the time the play opens, and Tommy is about to try out for the local AAA Peewee team, something about their shared passion has gone horribly awry. Tommy, for his part, still loves the game and enjoys playing it with his friend Deke (Matt Bois), but he is becoming increasingly un-nerved by his father’s off-ice interference.

And with the competition high for a berth with the team, both father and son are feeling the increased pressure — and the tension soon spills over not just into Tommy’s friendship with Deke, but also into the friendship the two boys have formed with Bobby, a girl whose goal is to stop goals (played by Tamila Zaslavsky). When dear old Dad starts pressuring Tommy to play hockey in a way his son knows is wrong, the burgeoning hockey star considers giving up the sport and a reckoning ensues.

Played out entirely on inline skates, THE BIG LEAGUE is structured not unlike a hockey game, with three periods, ending with sudden death overtime — actually, in what proves to be MacLean’s only really bad call in an otherwise strong production, it might be more appropriately called lingering death overtime, but we digress.

The setting, fittingly enough, is a pretty fair emulation of a hockey rink, created by designer Jung-Hye Kim and MacLean and her team use it like the pros they are. And in addition to some pretty impressive blade work by the whole team, Bois and McGrinder even buddy up to do a good-hearted send-up of Coach’s Corner, starring Ron McKleen and Don Berry respectively, that even includes a guest appearance by Blue Berry, for good measure.

Nestled somewhere in the crease between homage and send-up, THE BIG LEAGUE succeeds nonetheless, in being squirmingly good in its evocation of a loving parent who nonetheless allows his own passion and ambition to colour the way he sees his child — which makes it a whole lot easier to swallow an ending that is simply too pat for prime-time.

In the end, it’s hard to say which places the greatest strain on credulity — the ease with which McGrinder’s pushy Pater is redeemed and reconstructed, or the notion that a whole lot of hockey dads are going to take their kids to see a play about hockey in the middle of winter. Two minutes for high expectations.