Sophomore follow-up
pressure for playwrights is best compared to trying to
squeeze your head out of a car window that has been
rolled down no more than three and half inches.
It’s a good thing
Karol Korczynksi travels with a lot of lubricant.
Coming off 2004’s highly
acclaimed Canada House, he’s back this
month in the Tarragon Extra Space with Canada
Steel. Set in Hamilton, Ontario, the drama is a
frightful portrait of a Greek family that’s hit rock
bottom abandoned by both company and union and fending
for themselves with the Toronto Maple Leafs on the verge
of claiming Lord Stanley’s coveted cup.
Dialogue is peppered with
intensely vexed Korczynskisms targeting the broken world
in which we live. This time around he sets his sights on
downsizing, offshoring, and globalization just to name a
few.
On a narrative level,
Canada Steel is the anti-thesis of the colloquial
coming-of-age-on-the-prairies story which is why it’s a
story that needs to be told. For the most part it’s a
fast moving, engrossing multiple-character drama of
uninterrupted discouragement pulling no punches in its
depiction of lives in crisis. Propped up by a number of
surprising twists and turns, you hold on tight for two
acts to see who will survive the grim and suffocating
circumstance that embodies the trio of trailer park
dwellers.
Daniel Kash is
credible as Gus, the slowly disintegrating Leafs
nation faithful although he doesn’t solicit the level of
pathos he should for playgoers to cheer him on. But this
is easily accomplished by Alison Woolridge as
Rose who graciously gets the nod for standing by her
man.
Brian Marler holds
his own as Les, a seconded union boss looking to
break free from pushing credit cards in order to score a
cheap piece of artwork.
Just when the lack of
fresh faces on local stages results in a sustained sigh,
in come Charlotte Gowdy as Roxie and
Pragna Desai as Bhopal. They’re pleasantly
insightful, robustly talented, and downright sexy for
the stage.
Canada Steel
is by no means a perfect play but undeniably follows the
grove of risk taking theatre.
