REVIEW: Catholic anti-gay doctrine attacked in Walterdale play
Her name is Blake. She’s 15 years old. And in Walterdale Theatre’s adventuresome production of Lucia Frangione’s Leave of Absence, she’s about to experience a final loss of innocence. It’s the kind of moral wrestling that’s tough enough when you have the benefit of maturity – but at 15, attending a Catholic school in a small suburban community, the task is a mighty one indeed.
Blake’s (Lilly Hauck) moral odyssey begins with a small step. She feels attracted to her best friend Tracey. In a sleepover, her friend comes on to her, and when the mother walks in on them, Blake is blamed. The kid has poked the sleeping beast. One by one the forces of society, and her own trusted support system – her friends, her peers, her teacher and her school – rise up against her. Blake is not too sure what’s going on with her emerging sexuality, and is essentially betrayed.
“Everyone calls me a lesbian!“ she wails. No one will talk to her. Those that might support her are either absent or notable by their inaction. One character wonders, echoing what many Catholics face with their church’s unbending attitudes toward homosexuality, “Am I really a Catholic if I disagree with so much of the doctrine?”
Blake’s “prayer teacher,” Martha (Cassandra Kompf), unfailingly and stoutly defends the teachings of her church. When Blake’s “disorder” becomes known, Martha demands that the girl be directed into a life of “celibacy and devotion.” When the local priest Father Ryan (Glenn Balombin) disagrees, she charges that his attitude is “more Deepak Chopra than the teachings of the church.”
Others in the cast are Blake’s mom Greta (Wendy Shobe), a rather lusty sort with the hots for the priest, and Leap (Chance Heck), a morose Russian emigre and Blake’s distant father.
At first, Leave of Absence plays like a latter day Peyton Place where the “sins” of players are laid out. The kid is gay, has conversations with God, and is caught defacing Catholic property. When asked why all the graffiti, Blake replies she was under divine guidance,”She told me to do it.”
The local priest is lost, and asks Blake about her conversations with God, complaining that, “I’ve never had a mystical experience like you.” But no, it’s not Peyton Place – it is Frangione’s playbox where she can have her characters react to the uncertainty in their midst as the playwright dictates.
Therein lies the production’s first problem. There is seldom a sense of reality in the work. The characters dutifully recite their beliefs, but don’t probe the aching reality behind all the pain. They seldom rise above the feeling that they are mouthing the author’s predetermined mindsets. The “prayer teacher” talks about the female mystics, Hildegard of Bingen among others, but fails to connect their ecstatic miasma of love (a cryptic combination of Eros and Christ) to the needs of the awakening child before her.
The finale is a gripping affair with just a glimpse of the ecstasy that Blake was striving for.
Balombin is a bit whispy as the searching priest. but approachable and you can see why so much of the community turns to him. Shobe’s mother exudes a healthy sexual drive and a real care for her daughter. Kompf, who in other times would be a nun, is a solid speaker for an unbending orthodoxy. Heck is largely impenetrable emotionally as the unhappy father, but that’s pretty well the character. Hauck, who is from the Victoria School of the Arts, bubbles with a youthful exuberance and gives the feeling that if this bird is released, she will certainly fly.
One of the basic tools in the actor’s toolbox is to make yourself heard. Director Alix Reynolds might have suggested her players project because, particularly in the beginning – and even in the intimate space that is the Walterdale Theatre, the actors barely speak above a whisper. Frangione, who trained at Alberta’s Rosebud School of the Arts, is a writer with a ready intelligence and an ironic sense of humour, writing about a subject that doesn’t usually generate much flippancy. In fact, as one character points out, “There is no happy ending to this kind of story.”
Leave of Absence plays at the Walterdale Theatre through February 16.
