THEATRE REVIEW:
THE GOLDEN DRAGON

JOHN COULBOURN,
QMI Agency
19 JAN 2012
R: 2.5/5

Pictured: David Fox, Anusree Roy

TORONTO - The goal of every playwright is to take the audience deep into the head and heart of the characters that move from the playwright’s imagination to the page — and from there, to the stage. That said, it’s obvious that while some playwrights seem to paddle in tranquil seas, others prefer stormy weather, to a point where they will, on occasion, whip up hurricanes to make the voyage more interesting.

Based on Volcano Theatre’s acclaimed production of Peggy Pickit Sees The Face of God, German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig fits into the latter category. And indeed, dropping into Schimmelpfennig’s universe again in THE GOLDEN DRAGON, which opened Wednesday at the Tarragon under the direction of Volcano’s Ross Manson, confirms this is a playwright who thrives on a razor’s edge of credulity.

This time out, Schimmelfennig abandons Peggy Pickit’s middle class milieu in favour of the tiny kitchen of the Thai/Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant from which his play takes its name. In that kitchen, five Asians toil — an old man and an old woman, a young man and a young woman and a man of indeterminate years. And while the program suggests those characters will be played by David Fox, Lili Francks, David Yee, Anusree Roy and Tony Nappo respectively, Manson barely launches his cast into David Tushingham’s translation when it becomes obvious all bets are off and that in addition to being colour blind, this production will be wildly age and gender neutral as well.

As the play begins, the young man (played by Roy) — who is searching for his lost sister (Yee) — develops a toothache, and because he is in the country (apparently Germany) illegally, he can’t seek treatment. While his mates deal with this problem, Schimmelpfennig broadens his canvas, introducing some of the restaurant’s clientele, as well the life that is unfolding in the neighbourhood.

Upstairs, an old man (Yee) dreams of youth, while his granddaughter (Roy) struggles with an unwanted pregnancy. In another apartment, a man (Roy) mourns the end of his marriage, as his unfaithful wife (Nappo) packs. Meanwhile, a drunken shopkeeper (Francks) guards his secrets, and two flight attendants (Nappo and Fox) prepare to retire, having dined at the Golden Dragon and discovered that there can be something more off-putting than a fly in the soup.

It unfolds on a huge and hugely fluid set piece in the heart of the space, created by designer Teresa Przbylski, interwoven with a contemporary and hugely chilling retelling of the fable of the ant and the cricket, that will ultimately tie it all together as a contemporary tragedy.

And frankly, in binding things together, this production needs all the help it can get, as unconventional casting, meta-theatrical staging and a bag of writing tricks (that move quickly from charming to annoying) keep us on edge. When it works — when veteran actors like Nappo and Fox approach unorthodox casting with understated ease or when less-seasoned actors like Yee occasionally unearth real truth and tragedy in fanciful turns like the cricket — it works wonderfully, fired by true empathy.

But in the main, it is too often undone by promising actors whose reach exceeds their grasp, leaving them to fall back into caricature where nothing less than full commitment to character is demanded. Roy rarely leaves her comfort zone, Francks is too often stiffly strident and one hopes fate doesn’t force Yee to become the kind of old man he portrays.

Ultimately, however, Manson proves one thing. When a play is perched on a razor’s edge of credulity, it should be approached with nothing less than sure-footed artistry. Anything less threatens to topple it into the sea of mediocrity, where too many lacklustre works that over-reached themselves already dwell.