Life Savers: pieces and peeves

This "Ruby Slippers":http://www.rubyslippers.ca/ production of Serge Boucher’s *Life Savers* (translated by Shelley Tepperman) is like a puzzle where the pieces don’t quite fit together. Although the production is super slick, the script itself has the rare distinction of hitting not one but two of my pet peeves. First peeve: shows that purport to be exposés of suburban life that are really just extended, mean-spirited sneers.

I have no particular agenda on behalf of the suburbs, I’ve lived my whole life in cities but my sense is that people who live “out there” are just as capable of complicated, emotional lives as any artist living off the Drive. Why some artists feel the need to damn people who live nine-to-five lives in the suburbs is curious. I wonder what it is that frightens them so much? And why, when they “explore” this world do they always make the same banal observations? I think Life Savers is meant to be a satire on the vacuousness of those who live unconnected, conformist lives. Yet as a satire, the targets seem obvious and the characters rather cardboard. Director Diane Brown gets some fantastic performances out of her actors but somehow they feel layered on top of the script rather than emerging from the work itself.

The second pet peeve: the crazy person as oracle or Cassandra. The basic set up of Life Savers is that France (Colleen Wheeler) has been locked up for murder and is being prepared for release back into the community by spending time with her family. France is not a pleasant character – she’s not meant to be – but our sympathies are supposed to be with her, especially set against the background of her family. I mean, who wouldn’t commit murder just to get away from that bunch?

There is always a dramatic problem in any work that deals with mental illness: the problem itself is inherently static (think of Einstein’s famous “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”). Within a character, the tension can come from their struggle against the illness but I didn’t see this as particularly central to *Life Savers* (although France’s recovering her memory of the killing – she claims at the top of the show to have blacked out the incident – is the core of her journey on stage). The other potential location for dramatic tension is how those around the individual – in this case the family – cope with someone who is not healthy mentally. Yet, by having flat, clichéd characters who would rather talk about golf and the weather, Boucher denies us any opportunity to explore that tension. I think we’re meant to conclude that it’s a family of conformist shits that can’t stand the truth (as represented by, you know, the amnesic killer). Yet, my sympathies were, ironically, with the family. What are they supposed to do with France? She is unstable, capable of violence. What are their options? Are they supposed to blight their lives to placate her whims? When the father tells her that she better not fuck up when she’s back outside, I actually had some sympathy with him.

There is nothing romantic about struggles with mental health; nor do sufferers, to my mind, make particularly effective symbols to illustrate the short comings of our society. This leads to one of the places where the pieces of *Life Savers* don’t fit for me. It ‘s meant as some sort of commentary on 9-11 – the events take place around that time – but what sort of comment it’s making is not completely clear to me. The family talk about 9-11, Dad makes some off colour jokes and they generally don’t take the whole “world never being the same” seriously enough (neither did I, for that matter). There are, I suppose, some parallels that can be drawn between the family dynamic and how the west ignored festering problems in the Middle East until they punched us in the face. But this seems slightly arbitrary to me. You could take almost any narrative and set it against 9-11 and draw out some sort of parallel. And if this indeed is the inference of the play, then I don’t think it’s a particularly strong point. We can ignore the Middle East because we don’t live there, we don’t experience the problems on a daily basis. France’s family, on the other hand, did experience the trauma of living with France and existing in the shadow of her actions. Also, it could be argued that the west has been culpable in the problems that exist in the Middle East. I think the play is suggesting that France’s behaviour is the product of her upbringing – but I saw no real evidence of this, despite the revelation of the “Life Savers” monologue at the end (the whole piece builds to this moment). Perhaps if France’s transgressions weren’t so extreme then it might have been easier to see the connection between the family and France’s actions but as it stands, the argument is not proven for me. With France, particularly when you factor in Wheeler’s intense performance, I’m left concluding that – regardless of family background – certain people are born unstable.

This brings me to the point where I think the script and the production don’t match up properly. *Life Savers* seems to be a satire but it’s played like the darkest of kitchen sink drama. It’s true that an actor must always embody the reality of their character – whether comedy or tragedy – but when the investment is so dark, when the pain is too near the surface, then it’s difficult to see through to the humour. Now, I guess satire doesn’t have to be funny but it does need to be sharp and intelligent and I just don’t feel *Life Savers* measures up. If anything, the production – taken on its own terms – far exceeds the foundation the script provides. The performances are uniformly strong. Wheeler gives France a dark uneasiness; Naomi Wright, as the good sister, nails the uptight quality of someone trying to paper over everything including her sisters’ inappropriateness. Kevin McNulty is particularly effective at the end, his jokey mask slipping and giving full vent to the violence he’s capable of. The set by David Roberts is sleek as is the lighting by Itai Erdal and the sound design by Alessandro Juliani and Meg Roe. Some of the sequences that take place off stage are projected against the flat surfaces of the set. As with the performances, it seemed as if the design elements were constructed to tell another, more compelling and original story.

_By Serge Boucher. Translated by Shelley Tepperman. Directed by Diane Brown. A Ruby Slippers Theatre production. The production was at Performance Works and continues at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts from April 22 to 25. For more information go_ "here":http://www.rubyslippers.ca/season.htm