Why Torture is Wrong and the People Who Love Them: too nice?

During the filming of Star Wars, George Lucas allegedly gave his actors the immortal directions: “faster” and “more intense”.   

While I’m thankful to Twisted Knickerz Co-Op for bringing the Canadian Premiere of Christopher Durang’s Why Torture is Wrong and the People Who Love Them (currently on at the PAL Theatre) to Vancouver, I couldn’t help but feel that somehow this production lacked in the speed and intensity this complicated farce requires.

Why Torture is Wrong is a dark, dark exploration of US paranoia and violence, specifically male-forms of paranoia and violence. With its ripped from the headlines quality, it feels very much of our times (or, more correctly, of American times) and with its direct commentary on the state of the US nation has a quality of agitprop theatre to it. At the top of the play, Felicity (Beth Garner) wakes up in a hotel room with a strange man and with no recollection of how she got there. The man turns out to be Zamir (Aslam Husain), who claims to be from Ireland but clearly isn’t. On top of that, he’s prone to violent outburst followed by sweet offers of reconciliation. It is also likely that he drugged her. Felicity, as you’d expect in these circumstances, takes Zamir home to visit her parents in New Jersey. Her father, a militia madman in support of a “shadow government”, enlists some covert ops to help uncover the truth about Zamir and his intentions.

It is hard to think of contemporary parallels to this sort of absurdist satire. I suppose the closest (and not so contemporary) I can think of is Dr Strangelove. These are not fully realized characters with individual story arcs and moments of beatific transcendence (well, except for maybe Felicity, who anchors the show and to a lesser degree Zamir, who seems to experience some form of transformation at the end). The usual emotional expectations of theatre and the naturalistic situations that often accompany them are pushed to the back as biting satire and ideas are pushed aggressively to the fore.  Perhaps the most effective element in the script – and which this production does a great job of supporting – is satirizing the insane logic of the torturer.  The objective of torture isn’t the truth but the information that the torturer wants to hear.  The play also effectively illustrates the dissociative reality of contemporary life in the US and, through the mirroring of Zamir and Felicity’s father, reveals a profound truth about the inter-dependence of Arab/US posturing.

Now, I thought I liked putting into my plays switch-back moments where characters suddenly change emotional states but Durang puts me to shame. And for the life of me, I can’t imagine a harder text for a performer and director to get right. These changes of state are almost all in service of either the comedy or the message being delivered, leaving an actor with a lot of ground to cover.  Unfortunately, for my taste, director Chris McGregor and his cast only got part way there. The performer most at ease in this world is easily Stefano Giulianetti as Reverend Mike (the porn-making priest, it’s that sort of play). Giulianetti fully embodies both the reality of his character and the situations that the play puts him into. He’s a complete blast and when he’s on stage, Durang’s methods as a playwright suddenly snap into purpose. Brian Anderson as the narrator is also in his element, which is saying something as he also plays a Looney Tunes-spouting Tourette’s sufferer (yep, it’s that kind of play). Elizabeth McLaughlin as Hildegarde is also on the money and the way her knickers slide down her legs as she gazes lovingly up at Leonard (Brian J Coffey) is both comedic gold and profound truth in one action.  The other performers do solid work, although June B Wilde’s take on Luella - somewhere between Shelly Duvall’s Olive Oyl and Edith Bunker – feels too layered on top of what is already a deeply-bizarre character.  

Despite the talents of the cast, something was missing for me. And I come back to Lucas’ desire for speed and intensity. Instead of frantic and, well, Loony Tune, as I think the script demands, there was something almost stately about the proceedings in this production. I’m afraid that Mimi Abrahams set doesn’t help on this front. Despite being an engineering marvel – it's effectively a cube that spins around, with each side opening to reveal a new location – the scene changes were long and drawn out (although they did provide moments of epic poetry as the stagehands pushing the cube in the dark reminded me of Sisyphus and his rock). I have no idea how Durang envisaged the show working with an uber-naturalistic set (which strikes me as the only choice for this piece) without the use of a revolve on stage and a budget that would strain the Arts Club or Vancouver Playhouse.

There are many markers that differentiate English-speaking Canadians from our more rebellious, southern cousins and I wonder if these differences weren't somehow reflected here. In short, there didn’t seem to be the right crack of anger seething through this production. I wonder if in part this has to do with a Canadian company putting on this material. Although we recognize Why Torture is Wrong as satire, it is not satire pointed at ourselves. We are not carving into the psyche of our country the way Durang is, so there is a form of distancing going on. Even if the satire had been directed at Canadians, I doubt we could muster the same level of operatic self-loathing that Americans can; we don’t have the same ying and yang embodied within our cultural or political bodies. We like ourselves too much, I guess. And, in the end, maybe this production was just a little too nice for my taste.

Why Torture is Wrong and the People Who Love Them continues until June 13. For more information go here.