The Toronto Theatre Review: Tarragon Theatre’s Withrow Park

By Ross

These three lost souls come forward, staring out into the audience in the warm glow of light, searching the unseen horizon with a questioning eye. What are they missing? But then, out of nowhere, there is a knock at the door. Not a light casual one, but one that demands, repeatedly, to be paid attention to. “We have everything we need, for the moment“, Janet cries out, as if to ward off the arrival of something, or someone unwanted. But is she being all that honest? It turns out it’s just a handsome man in a wrinkled suit, new to the neighbourhood, wanting to say hello. There’s no need to be awkward about it, but as written with stealth by Morris Panych (Stratford’s Frankenstein Revived), the energy shifts with that persistent banging, and we all become as nervous and suspicious as Marion, although we don’t really know why. Not just yet.

Directed with pointed strength by Jackie Maxwell (Arena Stage’s Junk), Withrow Park is utterly surprising and compellingly engaging from the first knock onwards, pulling us in completely to its tense but hilariously well-scripted scenario. It shivers with the uncomfortable feeling of being watched, even though the three that inhabit this tidy home, next door to Withrow Park, are the ones spying, beyond that one shadowy and scary moment of the outside peering in. “Time has found them, hiding in plain sight,” we are told, and in that brief moment of suspicion, we wonder what kind of mystery have we been invited into.

Unwillingly floating in a fountain of listless despair unable to make a move, the three entangled characters move within this suburban precise space, courtesy of set designer Ken MacDonald (Tarragon’s Paint Me This House of Love) in a way that cleverly tugs at our senses. There is a claustrophobic energy of indifference in this home,; a stalemate of sorts, in need of some movement forward, now, or else something might devour them from the hedges of that very park next door. With the clues being steadfastly delivered, the structure and dynamics of these three are delivered slowly but with stealth deliberation. Janet, perfectly portrayed by Nancy Palk (Soulpepper’s King Lear), who bravely answered the door to the handsome stranger, seems to be the one who is mostly in charge, going fish shopping in the most unhappy fish market and making meals that seemingly sound more delicious than they turn out to be. She’s losing her eyesight. That becomes clear, but she strides forward, even as she loses her will and her drive.

Her older sister, Marion, fascinatingly well-played by Corrine Koslo (Crow’s Middletown), sits comfortably in a chair, never reading the book she holds tight in her arms, talking about killing herself on her birthday. Well, maybe not this one coming, but maybe the next one. Driving off a cliff, she thinks, even though she can’t drive. But her view is always to the outside world, even though she seems to never leave her sister’s house. She stares and studies, looking for danger, even as she has lost her way. Janet’s ex-husband Arthur, played solidly and smartly by Benedict Campbell (Tarragon’s Wormwood) also sits idly by, drinking the afternoon away, one gin at a time, starting earlier and earlier, wondering what the point is, now that his newly discovered gay self has been abandoned; run off with another; a dogwalker in Palm Springs, no less, and he can’t bear the shame nor the heartbreak. So he has returned, to the house of his wife, and the house of his deceased mother, who went mad in the basement, surrounded by all the dragged-down furniture and Boston lettuce. An idea that makes more sense to Arthur now, more than ever before.

Listless and unwavering in this stale aroma, the three find communal despair in each other, filling the day with conspiracy talk of that wrinkled suited man staring back at them from the park. The dialogue is deeply funny, especially when they start going at each other, as they look at the same things but see something completely different from their overworked binoculars. And then the handsome stranger comes inside, and then, they invite him for dinner. Everything shifts at that moment, and turns like a pendulum lulling and hypnotizing us into another dimension. Dynamically embodied by the captivating Johnathan Sousa (Stratford’s Coriolanus), Simon is a hard one to read, flickering from one state to another with compelling ease. But Koslo’s Marion is on the case, trying her best to entrap him in her hilariously misguided mystery-solving techniques. Her quick asides, and Campbell’s obstinant disobedience of Janet’s request for polite decorum keep the shaking of things up and going forward, never giving the floor over to anything remotely dull or pedestrian. Watching Simon smile, somewhat sinister and somewhat sensual in a perfectly chosen old Nirvana tee, courtesy of the wonderful costuming of Joyce Padua (Factory’s Vierge), I was captivated by the casual insanity that was being played out, and loving every minute of their intense and ridiculous detangling.

Those two, Campbell and Koslo, are astoundingly good – making me wish I had seen them both when they starred together in the Shaw Festival’s production of Sweeney Todd (I saw Koslo’s understudy the night I went), and Palk’s Janet is deeply fascinating and detailed, giving us something so unique and captivating that we can’t help but engage with her as she deals with an ex-husband who left her for a gay lover and has since returned. As well as a sister who seems completely comfortable staying in Janet’s home, doing pretty much nothing beyond talking about her drive towards death and her conspiracy theories about that man who has come for dinner. Maybe she doesn’t actually have to get in the car. Maybe what she unknowingly wants has come a-knocking at their very door.

Withrow Park keeps giving us more and more deliciousness to chew on, culminating with the dynamic ending of Act One and its smartly defined beginning of Act Two. Simon, in a pool of light designed strongly by Kimberly Purtell (Crow’s The Chinese Lady) with a solid sound design and musical composition by Jacob Lin 林鴻恩 (Tarragon’s The Hooves Belonged to the Deer). Sousa is astounding good in his complicated abstractionisms, stripping himself magnificently of formality to unwind and unpack a dark idea that is both poetic and discombobulating. We can’t quite figure out why we are feeling this tense, even once we meet the complicated bundle of energy that is Simon. Who is he? And what does he want with these three? And could he really be what we think he is?

The unpacking of those questions is hypnotically fascinating, with clues and theories leading us down pathways toward numerous explanations. But in a way, this has more to do with those three lost souls, trying to understand why they are living there in that well-appointed living room with that beautiful silverware without any sense of purpose. There is poetry in their intellectual and emotional wanderings, as well as some hilariously well-crafted moments of sharpness mixed in with loneliness and a feeling of being lost in the rain without a map, or an umbrella. Withrow Park is hilarious, especially when it tosses out Buddhist recycling jokes, wild free-flying accusations, and deadly observations seen late at night in a park lit by car headlights. The writing is brilliant and intensely sharp, giving us binocular views into the subtle confusion and despair of some souls who need a push to make a change. “When you stop wanting something, you die,” a truth one of the trapped souls says of their situation, yet Withrow Park has some other brilliant plans in store for them. Hiding in the park’s bins, but don’t forget. Remember this moment, because it’s hypnotizingly great. And utterly profound.