Model Wanted - A Why-Dun-It

Genre Definition = Funny · Intense · Intimate

The Fringe program notes: "inspired by a real New Brunswick murder story." The play opens with the murder as a dumb-show (shades of Hamlet), a young man suddenly stabbing a rather older man, so the piece is not who-dun-it but WHY-dun-it.  

A 17-year-old high schooler has conflicts with his well-meaning but explosive mother. (She is a single parent and I wanted at least a reference to the absent father). The mother catches him lying, then she loses her job and lies about it. They have a young woman, ostensibly lesbian, as a boarder who lives in the storage room. The son has a fragmented relationship with her (that includes drugs). 

The more crucial half of the drama is the youth's involvement with a photographer who specializes in portraits of young men. Though the youth is understandably uneasy about his several visits to model for photos, he keeps - perhaps implausibly - returning. This could be for money, for friendship, for the many beers (what is the legal age in New Brunswick?).   Indeed, I decipher the main subject to be the search of a young man for his sexual identity, mixed in with mother/son tangles. This is the world of David Adams Richards' novels, the Maritime small town.

The story is told in many very short scenes, which escalate in seconds to high emotion, causing excess from the actors. Further, rather awkwardly, we look right to the photographer's room and then left to a dining table, leaving the middle empty. The author, Step Taylor, also directs, which in this case may well be a mistake, especially as no dramaturg is listed. The cast is Kayla Doerksen, 15 years too young to play the mother; Grace Fitzpatrick in the underwritten part of the lodger;  Jesse LaVercombe as a convincing sullen and confused teenager;  and tall handsome Adrian Shepherd-Gawinski as the photographer.   All are National Theatre School-trained - but not in projection. Though this is not unusual in younger actors, these were sometimes inaudible in a fairly small space.   Taylor is learning about playwriting and his cast are gaining useful experience.

NOTE:  Anyone on a tight timetable should know that this drama runs 65 minutes, not the 90 minutes given in the program.

By Malcolm Page
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