THEATRE REVIEW:
THE LITTLE YEARS
15 JUL/11

JOHN COULBOURN - QMI Agency
Rating 4.5 out of 5


STRATFORD - In a world increasingly determined to place a pricetag and a value on everything, any discussion that involves both the arts and science is, quite frankly, most likely to involve budgets as well.

Which is all the more reason to appreciate the genius of playwright John Mighton, who discusses them both to telling effect without once bringing up dollars and cents in a re-imagined and re-written treatment of The Little Years that opened in the Stratford Festival’s Studio Theatre Wednesday.

More than 15 years after it premièred in its original incarnation at Theatre Passe Muraille, The Little Years emerges as a thought-provoking and often deeply moving look at the life of one woman who learns her own value and the value of her ‘art’ only after years of suffering.

We meet Kate as a young woman (played by Bethany Jillard), full of curiosity and odd angles. She is besotted in the main with the science of time — a pre-occupation her mother (Chick Reid), a child of a different era, finds most un-feminine. Besides, Kate’s brother, whom we never meet, is the familial star, the apple not only of his mother’s eye, but his late father’s as well. Kate is reduced to committing all her thoughts to diaries and journals.

Time moves on and Kate (now played by Irene Poole) is still at odds with the world, forced by her gender into a conventional career path and chafing under its restrictions. Grace, her new sister-in-law, played by Yanna McIntosh, tries to help her, but Kate retreats more and more into her own world, leaving behind a reality that affords her no sense of self.

While her brother enjoys international success as a poet, Kate is treated for depression — and Grace struggles to find her way too, reduced to the dual role of mother and wife. She looks to Roger (Evan Buliung), an aspiring artist, for comfort.

In episodic fashion, The Little Years ends almost a lifetime away from its starting point, as Kate joins the celebrations marking the high school graduation of her niece Tanya (also played by Jillard). Having finally found a niche in which she can survive, Kate is, in her own eyes and in the eyes of most of the people around her, a failure and a non-entity. But while she may not have enjoyed the success her brother achieved or even the moderate fame that marked Roger’s career, she has, she discovers, touched one person far more deeply than either the painter or the poet.

Sparely and economically directed by Chris Abraham, who uses Julie Fox’s simple set design and the powerful lighting of Kimberly Purtell to maximum effect, The Little Years is a superb showcase for this ensemble, fleshed out by AJ Bridel, Victor Ertmanis and Gavin Tessler in supporting roles. That said, its real strength can be found in the work of its three principals.

In the face of her double casting, Jillard creates two distinct characters clearly joined by a familial bond, while as Grace, McIntosh turns in a nuanced performance, creating a character that not only matures but deepens before our very eyes, coming close to over-balancing the show. But finally, Poole, as the mature Kate, simply refuses to surrender to it, resolutely keeping her audience at arm’s length, even while she draws us into the tragedy that consumes Kate’s life.

The real triumph here is Mighton’s, however, proving yet again it is possible to combine intellect and feeling in a single script. In a world where every artist seems to be called upon to justify his existence, Mighton proves that even if its creation is accidental, the value of art can be huge.