Catherine Banks’ play In This Light, adapted from Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, now playing at the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts, is a vivid reminder that sometimes good theatre is infuriatingly provocative in its ability to reflect our deeply flawed society so accurately.
Dr. Thomasina Burke is a fiercely intelligent and practical medical doctor in a rural village in the Annapolis Valley during the Great Depression. The town has fallen on hard times, but there is a newfound sense of optimism centred around the opening of a health spa for polio victims, featuring healing effects from the local spring-fed reservoir. Unfortunately, Dr. Burke uncovers a huge problem, the water is being poisoned by the tanneries next to the spring, and the community needs to be notified for their own safety. The health spa will also need to be moved, which is an extremely expensive and time consuming endeavour. This puts the economy of the village in real danger. But what is more important: a booming economy or the health and well being of the people?
Dr. Burke is initially naive about the political nature of this problem. She assumes that, of course, the town can’t possibly poison polio victims for profit. She also assumes that, obviously, the town can’t refuse to tell its residents that their water is poisonous. She then has a meeting with Peter Burke, the Mayor (and her brother-in-law), and she realizes that while the morality in the situation is clear, the economics of that morality are very, very complex. Initially, Dr. Burke can count on the support of her friend Editor Whitman, the editor of the newspaper, Jack Johnson, a well-connected citizen who also works for the paper, and young journalist, Harry Beals; but all have their spines crumble upon being threatened by the scaremongering mayor and encouraged to focus on the short-term economic hurdle, rather than the long-term environmental catastrophe. While trying to save the village she loves from itself Dr. Burke and her family (a blind husband who relies on her, and a bright daughter who works as a schoolteacher) become social pariahs for daring to speak the truth to power.
Mary Fay Coady plays Patricia, Dr. Burke’s exuberant and progressive daughter, who is idealistic, almost to a fault. Matthew Lumley is the kind Karl Burke, Dr. Buke’s husband, who lost his sight during World War I. Lumley does a great job of painting Karl as a man whose instinct is to want to protect his wife and daughter, but who is also learning to give them a freedom and respect that was rare for women to have at this time. Ryan Rogerson plays John Wallace, a curmudgeonly owner of one of the polluting tanneries, who is also an adopted father-figure for Dr. Burke. Rogerson gives a lot of nuance to John Wallace, a man who behaves in often unexpected ways. Jim Fowler gives a beautiful performance as Joe Beals, a working class man who is relying on his shares of the spa to enable him to send his bright daughter, Camilla (sweet Hilary Adams) to Nursing School. It becomes clear to us that ultimately those most in danger of losing their livelihood through the closing of the spa are, of course, the people who need an honest wage most of all. Genevieve Steele is perfectly weasel-like as the self-serving and cowardly Jack Johnson, a misogynist who routinely works himself into paranoid hysteria, bases all his decisions on his emotions, and doesn’t see the irony. Jeff Schwager plays Mayor Burke, the corrupt and gaslighting, condescending, male chauvinist asshat with so much exasperating realism that I genuinely wanted Burgandy Code’s Dr. Buke to start hurling rocks at his head just to make him shut the eff up. Schwager has captured the belittling arrogance of an inept, rich, powerful, well-connected, straight, white man flawlessly. Burgundy Code gives Dr. Buke a beautiful mixture of vulnerability and strength, empathy and idealism, intelligence, but also a deep sense of shock when she sees first hand how corrupt, selfish and dangerously stubborn her own neighbours and family members can be. It’s a beautiful arc and Code paints with all the colours.
I love how Banks intertwines so many themes into the plot of the play, highlighting the various ways that something that seems on the surface so simple can become inexorably tangled. Chris O’Neill’s Editor Whitman, for example, begins the play as an ardent Feminist and eagerly touts her newspaper as having the might to hold the politicians to account. Yet, not only does this support for Dr. Burke evaporate throughout the play, Editor Whitman even threatens to turn others in the Suffragette movement against Dr. Burke. We like to think of “Feminists” as always being on the “right” side of history, which has not been the case, and Banks does a great job here of showing one scenario where a woman chooses her own self-interest over the greater good. Similarly, Harry Beals, played by Devin MacKinnon, begins the play acting as an ally for the women in the play, yet we learn that when one doesn’t behave exactly as he wants her to, he will turn on them all, revealing himself as one of the bitterest and cruelest misogynists.
Ken Schwartz has the play set in between two pools of water (bring your bug spray!) and being immersed in nature on the North Mountain adds to the deep sense of realism of the play. In a way, the set is what is at stake, both in Banks’ fictional historic world, but also very much in our own contemporary one.
Ibsen’s play was written in 1882, and Banks’ is set roughly 90 years ago, but the connections to our lives are vividly clear. We live in a world where for decades politicians have chosen the economy over the environment, and we are just beginning to grasp the colossal scope of the danger these decisions have left us in. Female politicians, activists, scientists, doctors and experts in all fields don’t need to tweet much to have an unsolicited encounter with a Jack Johnson, a Peter Burke, or a Harry Beals. The ending of Banks’ play was unexpectedly satisfying, with a twist that shows a shrewd understanding of the nature of power, class, and oppression. Throughout the play Dr. Burke speaks about the light, perhaps that at the end of the tunnel, perhaps the art of being enlightened, perhaps just marvelling over the magnificence of nature, but it leaves us feeling hopeful that what is true and what is right will shine on regardless for both Dr. Thomasina Burke and for us.
Two Planks and a Passion Theatre‘s Production of In This Light plays at the Ross Creek Centre for the Arts (555 Ross Creek Road, Canning, NS) on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Friday August 16th at 6:00pm and Sundays at 2:00pm until August 17th. For tickets please call 902.582.3073 or visit this website.
You can find Two Planks and a Passion/ Ross Creek Centre for the Arts on Social Media: Facebook. Twitter. Instagram (@rosscreek).
