By James Karas
Poison is a play by Dutch playwright Lot Vekemans that is based on the
simplest of plots and consisting almost entirely on the recollections of a couple
that has been separated for nine years. Yet it is a moving, elegiac play in
which most of the deep emotions, the grief and the pain that it expresses form
an almost invisible undercurrent. We share the expressed and especially
unexpressed pain of the couple in this superbly
done production of a marvellous play.
Vekemans calls
the two characters of her play He and She and they meet in a cemetery in
Holland for a meeting with other people about what should be done with the
people buried there because their remains may be poisoning the waterbed.
There is no
meeting and He and She stay to talk to each other haltingly, with numerous
pauses and embarrassment. There is considerable emotional tension, anger and
attempts to conceal their true feelings. But the facts do come out, slowly and
judiciously controlled by the playwright and in turn by the actors.
Fiona Highet and Ted Dykstra in Poison.
Photo: DAHLIA KATZ
He left her on
New Year’s Eve 1999, the eve of the millennium at a precise hour and drove
away. He is now living in France and went back to Holland for the meeting.
Spoiler alert. The pain that joins them is the death of their son who was
killed in an accident, right in front of his mother’s eyes. The pain is
unbearable.
There are
recriminations, attempts to understand why he left her and why she did nothing
to stop him. Attempts and some success at sharing the grief and the pain, and
attempts at reconciliation or at bridging the emotional gap are made but
nothing really works.
Ted Dykstra
plays He and Fiona Highet is She. Highet is a tall woman with expressive eyes
and a voice that intones her complex emotions about her child, her separation,
her anger and her loneliness. It is a beautiful performances that draws us into
her beauty and agony.
Dykstra, with
his tousled hair looks more like a kid than an adult. He stands accused of
abandoning his wife, of not having the depth of feeling and sorrow that she
feels and of moving on with his life. It is not true but he in fact has moved
on with his life. He reaches out to her and she is almost ready to reach back
until she is crushed by him again. He is married and expecting a child.
This beautifully
moving play is done in the small playing area of
the Coal Mine Theatre, in front of a bare white wall, some white plastic chairs
and a water cooler designed by Patrick Lavender. Director Peter Pasyk controls
the revelations and the emotional levels of the play to almost subliminal
levels. The audience feels them more acutely that way.
A moving and
splendid night at the theatre.
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