THEATRE REVIEW:
WAS SPRING

JOHN COULBOURN,
Special to TorSun
06 APR 2012
R: 4/5

Pictured: Clare Coulter

TORONTO - According to Friedrich Nietzsche, that which doesn’t kill us is certain to make us stronger, but if Nietzsche were to be distilled by playwright Daniel MacIvor, one suspects that bit of wisdom would be pared down so that it reads simply: “That which doesn’t kill us, makes us,” for in MacIvor’s world, characters carry on whether they are stronger or not.

Certainly, Kitty, the woman at the heart of WAS SPRING, MacIvor’s latest play, has faced a lot in her long life that might have killed her (or made her wish she were dead) but now, as that life slips away, she must find the strength to sort through it all and figure out what she has learned and finally what, in the end, she believes. WAS SPRING opened in its Toronto première under MacIvor’s own direction in the Tarragon Extra Space Wednesday.

It begins as the aged Kitty (played with a heart-breaking and angular grace by Clare Coulter, too long absent from our stages) begins to sense she is losing control of her life, and summons two wildly different women to help her sort through her story. Kit, played by Jessica Moss, is a young romantic, her innocence largely unscarred by her recent physical encounters with her young man, while Kath, played by long-time MacIvor collaborator Caroline Gillis, fairly boils with the pain, bitterness and disappointment that have marked her middle years.

Filled with mutual and self-loathing, the two newcomers spend much of the 90-minute duration of the play sparring with each other and with the aged Kitty before they finally come together to accomplish the task for which they have been summoned. Along the way, the audience is left to sort out the relationship between the three women and how the life each has lived and the pain she has survived have informed the lives of the other two women with whom she now find herself sharing this interlude.

Set on a spare and visually introspective set designed and lit by Kimberly Purtell, with equally spare costumes and sound by Shawn Kerwin and Verne Good, respectively, MacIvor’s WAS SPRING creates an understated snapshot in muted tones of what might mistakenly be considered an ordinary life. And by deconstructing that life at every turn to show the often gaping chasm that separates dreams from needs, his play underlines the fact that as the end draws closer, there really is no such thing as an ordinary life.

It’s another fine accomplishment from one of our finest playwrights, but sadly as a director, MacIvor lets his playwright down, going all isosceles in a triangular tale that should be equilateral to achieve its maximum strength. From Coulter, he draws a heart-rending, profane performance that manages to capture both the dignity and the heartbreak and betrayal of ageing, while from Gillis, he goes against type and taps into a well of bitterness. But sadly, with Moss, while he draws the right notes of youth and vigour, he fails to plumb the sincerity of her innocence, contenting himself instead with merely underlining the depth of her shallowness, selling short her contribution to the story.

Fortunately, as a playwright, MacIvor is strong enough to almost overcome his shortcomings as a director and in the end, these three talented actors create a poignant portrait of a woman who has been shaped by her pain but, in the end, is made stronger by one unshakeable and simple belief.