Heroes - Be Brave and Check Out a Non-Fringe Show!
Heroes, a play about three WWI veterans plotting a getaway from a military retirement home somewhere in France, is a perfect vehicle for three veteran Vancouver actors: John Innes, William Samples and Michael Dobbin. Written in 2003 by Gérald Sibleyras, translated and adapted from French by Tom Stoppard, Le Vent des Peupliers won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy (as Heroes) in 2006.
Innes, Samples and Dobbin are on top of their game just as much-decorated Gustav, Phillippe and Henri were on top of theirs during the war. But the cost has been high for the three war vets: Phillippe (Samples) has shrapnel in his head and blacks out with increasing frequency. Samples, wide-eyed, fidgets and fusses, sits with knees together, almost wringing his hands with nervous energy, which only endears us more to this sweet, beret-sporting fellow. Curly, silver-haired Henri (Dobbin) has a bum leg but he still manages to leave the grounds regularly and get down to the nearby village where he watches young schoolgirls and their “lissome” teacher Rose with great – but innocent – interest. Dobbin, as Henri, is full of optimistic bluster. Gustave is agoraphobic and Innes brings a sardonic, embittered, yet strangely admirable character to the sunlit terrace (designed by Glenn MacDonald and warmly lit by Claire Carolan) where the trio hangs out, barring all others with the territoriality of Rottweilers. The fourth character on stage – and eventually an important one – is a lifesize, garden-ornament, stone dog.
It’s 1959, it’s August, one of the twelve months of the year Gustav hates most, the wind is in the poplars (le vent des peupliers of the original title) on the distant hillside and the geese are readying themselves for their long migration. Gustav, like the geese, is restless. According to Stoppard, “one of the attractions of translating Heroes is that it’s not the kind of play that I write”, and it’s not. It’s not full of punchy one-liners or laced with irony. It’s even a bit sweet – not a word one would ever apply to a Stoppard play. There’s a bit of David Mamet’s Duck Variations – a play about a pair of old codgers who get into an argument about the mating habits of ducks – in it. In Heroes, the three old guys argue about all sorts of things – including whether there’s any point in making women laugh. “They have to fancy you”, argues Gustave but, “making them laugh is more important than making them climax”, claims Phillippe.
Directed by Terence Kelly for a newly formed company called The FOG Theatre (Four Old Gents? Fresh Outta Gin? Or?), Heroes is gentle and funny as these old guys hatch a ridiculous plot to break out which, considering that Gustave moves only from his room to the terrace and no further, is unlikely. Going for a nice picnic under the poplars – Phillippe’s suggestion – is much more plausible but “nothing revolts me more than a picnic”, says the always negative Gustave. Heroes is not quite substantial enough – or maybe tight enough – to support its own weight. There are stretches of entertaining dialogue that don’t advance the plot or increase to any great extent our understanding of the characters. Director Kelly allowed that it ran long on opening night. But the performances of Dobbin, Innes and Samples keep us mostly charmed and the final image tugs at the heartstrings. It’s a little sweet, perhaps, but with our own Canada geese beginning noisy rehearsals for their big event, it’s an image that resonates with the restless. And who isn’t a bit restless in September, beautifully but awkwardly lodged between summer and winter?
Jo Ledingham reviews Wednesdays for The Courier
TICKET INFO:
At Performing Arts Lodge (PAL) Studio until September 30
1-800-838-3006/brownpaperticke