Lion in the streets
In playwright Judith Thompson's LION IN THE STREETS, the world is seenthrough the eyes of a young girl who has been murdered. Isobel (AlexandriaSage) wanders amidst the lives of family members and neighborhood peoplediscovering death all around her - literally, spiritually, and morally.Sage does a marvelous job as the lost soul looking for a home. Enhancedby a splendid cast comprised of Elizabeth Elkins, Lisa Pierotti, CharlesWilley, Tim Corcoran, Leo Farley, and Paula Ewin, LION IN THE STREETSis a powerful play about the difficulties of living and dying. Thompsonpresents a series of scenarios about infidelity and betrayal, illness, deception,and other daily dilemmas. Throughout, the cast don different personas andoccasionally cavort in modern dance expressions against a background oftheatre class offers an entirely professional, way-above-average rendition of Lion In The Streets, Judith Thompson's rich and challenging 1990 drama.The actors' controlled, complex performances are further enhanced by Jeannette Lambermont's hip, dynamic direction, and are played out against a flawless technical backdrop of set, lighting and costume.The play, enacted by a cast of 28, is a series of dreamlike vignett
While the play purports to be about Isobel's search, it's really nothing more than a device to allow the playwright to address a shopping list of social ills. She glows with confidence and pride at her ability to appreciate the simpler pleasures of life, while being able later to easily dismiss her dying best friend's last request (beautifully done by Bahr). In the process, she finds herself a voyeur in the lives of her neighbors, bearing witness to their own troubled lives and warning them of encroaching evil. On first surveying this play, I worried that some scenes were too long. Both plays contained themes of violence and oppression, LION IN THE STREETS focusing more on society's bashing of marginalised people, while SCAPISM looked at the difficulties of remaining an independent artist in the face of love. Sage is bold, controversial, socially responsible and unafraid to take risks - and Lion in the Streets says all of that. Unfortunately, it also says that they're a bit solemn and not afraid to be heavy-handed. We're our own worst enemies in life's battles. Tantalizing, imaginative and eerily sad, the first act excites anticipation for the second. Though he overplays the part of David with excessive feyness, Paul Floding is excellent as an angry and frightened man obsessed by a homosexual experience at school. Douglas MacLeod's tortured Father Hayes and Darcy Dunlop's dying cancer victim, who longs for an Ophelia-like death, are two of the best, but Susan Bristow also creates a stable of strikingly unique characters, encompassing a worried mother and a shattered rape victim. Lion in the Streets is an eviscerating La Ronde, in which the spirit of a dead girl, Isobel (portrayed by Deirdre Atkinson), flows between the lives of her neighbors while she hunts her murderer. Harm and humiliations are seldom tidy; to wrap scenes up with small flourishes would only diminish their impact. In the midst of the piece's frenetic drive, he allows moments of stillness of the type that Saul Bellow said characterized the eyes of storms and prayers. Lion in the Streets doesn't do the job.
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Acceptance Essays
