“Doesn’t take much, does it?” asked Jacob, eating a bit of toast with orange marmalade. He also had a plate of scrambled eggs before him. Wanita had made his favourite breakfast. He’d even decided to have coffee today.
“Much to what?” I asked, enjoying my toast.
“Amuse you,” he said cryptically. “You are like a tourist who’s never seen a dinosaur skeleton up close. Take him to the ROM and he acts like the damn thing was just invented. You have that kind of enthusiasm.”
“For what?” I asked, a little hurt but mostly curious.
“Helen,” he whispered and took of sip of coffee. Milk no sugar. “Helen Lawrence.” This was the new play running at the Arts Club’s Stanley Theatre.
I was gobsmacked. We had never discussed the recent Arts Club production and he did not yet know I was reviewing on a HuffPost blog. Or did he?
“Maybe I haven’t seen Helen,” I said. “You were pretty worked up about it though. You were not impressed as I recall.”
“I feel sorry for the actors,” he said. “What a shame they have to drag that thing half way around the world before they’re done. That’s one trip to Europe I would try to skip.” Then he returned to his point. “You,” he said, “are writing again. And you liked Helen. Can you taste?”
I understood the question and it hurt me.
Clearly, somehow, he had read my review of Helen Lawrence. I was devastated. He was not being kind, or supportive, or encouraging. I did not know in which direction he was headed here but I didn’t like it. I felt like his student again. Also, I had not liked Helen. On the contrary, my review had dismissed it except for the talent of the actors and the effect of clever, if poorly-used, technology. What was he talking about?
“I didn’t like it,” I said, politely. “If you’ll reread me, you’ll see that—”
“All that technology you liked,” he said. “You thought it was original and you were captivated. It’s like you’ve never seen live video used on stage before. It’s like you think showing a movie on a scrim is somehow new. Have you never heard of the blue screen technique? You wrote like some tourist who thinks he just discovered the Grand Canyon.”
“The combination of technologies was impressive,” I said. I was right.
“So what was so impressive?”
“The film-noir effect?” I said, nervously.
“Stan was just showing off,” Jacob said. “And showing off puts the artist before the art. Nobody wants to see that.”
Director and conceiver Stan Douglas had presented a half-baked idea. I could not argue that.
“For the most part,” said Jacob smiling, “you were impressed by the novelty of old technology poorly used. My boy, what were you thinking? And you never mentioned the nausea.”
“The nausea?”
“Shifting my focus from the stage to the screen and back again, over and over, gave me that uneasy feeling you get when you walk around wearing someone else’s glasses. That show made me sick.”
I still believed the combination of technologies was novel and impressive, even if the show was not.
“You’re wrong,” said Jacob, reading my mind. “And those poor actors have to go to Edinburgh,” he said. “The British critics will notice the nausea.”
This was over the top. I completely disagreed. Still, I too had been uneasy to learn this production would visit Edinburgh. Those poor actors.
“You’re probably wondering how I discovered your review,” he said. I nodded. “Now I must return to work. I’m working in a minor key and that always makes me sad. No interruptions.” He rose and turned and walked from the table.
“How did you—“
“No interruptions,” he said, his back to me, as he continued from the room.
Helen Lawrence, conceived by Stan Douglas, story by Chris Haddock and Stan Douglas, written by Chris Haddock, at the Arts Club’s Stanley Theatre, until April 13.
Jacob Loves Theatre 