THEATRE REVIEW: THE BEST BROTHERS

Pictured: Daniel MacIvor, John Beale

JOHN COULBOURN,
Special to TorSun
01 OCT 2013
R: 3.5/5

The dog days of summer — normally limited to July and August — get a holdover, thanks to the play which launched the Tarragon Theatre's season last week. Written by Daniel MacIvor, it's called THE BEST BROTHERS, and not only was it commissioned by one of our pre-eminent summer festivals — Stratford, to be specific  —  it also has a highly seasonal feel, built as it is around the sort of gay-pride celebrations that demand summer's wealth of sunshine and hot weather.

As the play begins, Bunnie Best, the free-spirited mother of Kyle and Hamilton Best, has met her end in a colourful, if gruesome, way, crushed under the combined weight of a sound speaker and a drag queen, both oversized and both of which toppled on to her as she watched the Gay Day parade. Which means that the better part of the play is devoted to ensuring that the Best brothers of title do a good job of dealing with the rituals of a parent's death. Obituary, visitation, funeral — all are dutifully arranged by the two brothers, who after years of practice, are adept at working around the filial antipathy that binds them together.

Hamilton, played by the playwright, is an uptight engineer, engaged in building design and enduring a failed marriage. Free-spirited Kyle (John Beale) , meanwhile, is a real estate agent, happily involved in a same-sex relationship with a sex worker — a relationship that both brothers know was the catalyst which led their mother to the fatal parade in search her search for  a more appropriate partner for her gay son. There remains one sticking point between the two brothers however: Who will take charge of their mother's beloved pet, a rather spoiled canine who exhibits great (and hugely expensive) taste in modern kitchens.

As the brothers Best try to sort out custody of the mutt, they take turns channeling their mother's now-departed spirit, providing background not just on their family life but on the story of the unwanted dog as well.

For those accustomed to the hard-edged style that marks most of the MacIvor canon, THE BEST BROTHERS will surely seem a little soft at its centre, its cleverness not nearly as well integrated into the mix of drama and black comedy that is the playwright's milieu.

But it is still an entertaining piece for all that, only seriously marred by director Dean Gabourie's staging of scenes in which the spirit of the late Bunnie returns to the stage. Ultimately, Gabourie's initial, heavy-handed way of marking each performer's transition from brother to mother is just lazy staging, telegraphing a lack of trust in both the material and his audience. And while the fact that it slows things down is of little consequence in a production  spanning slightly more than 80 minutes, the fact that it throws a wrench into a storyline that otherwise moves at a brisk MacIvor-eque clip proves more bothersome. Finally, as good as it is, THE BEST BROTHERS, at least in this production, does not emerge as one of MacIvor's better works.