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Crow’s Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Centre Theatre Group & Winery Theatre/Dana H, written by Lucas Hnath, directed by Les Waters, Manufacturing facility Theatre, closes Apr. 7. Tickets right here.
Dana H is a exceptional play, and regardless of its harrowing nature, is to not be missed.
This can be a visiting manufacturing that started in Chicago, and the excellent news is that Crow’s Theatre has introduced it to Toronto. The play brought on a sensation each off and on-Broadway in 2020-2021, and Les Waters, who directed the unique manufacturing, has additionally helmed this iteration.
Lucas Hnath is a widely known American playwright, and theatre cognoscenti may bear in mind his opus, A Doll’s Home, Half 2 (2017), having a profitable run right here on the town a couple of years again. His Dana H, nevertheless, is a play in contrast to something I’ve ever seen earlier than.
Dana H occurs to be Hnath’s mom, Dana Higginbotham. In 1997, she had, apparently, simply misplaced her job as a chaplain in a psychiatric unit at a Florida hospital, when she was kidnapped and traumatized by a drug-addicted, ex-convict, Aryan brother, and former affected person known as Jim.
For the following 5 months she skilled a horrifying captivity, being dragged from motel to motel, because the psychopathic Jim did numerous jobs for his white supremacist crime syndicate pals. When she did handle to flee, the terrified Higginbotham spent two and a half years hiding from Jim, working with a development gang. Hnath’s play is about these surprising occasions.
Hnath’s good friend Steve Cosson is a director, author, and creative director of The Civilians, an organization identified for docudrama and verbatim theatre. In 2015, Hnath requested Cosson to interview his mom concerning the expertise, as she was then prepared to speak about it. He requested Cosson to do the interviews, moderately than himself, as he felt a impartial particular person was higher. Cosson recorded these interviews, which Hnath then original right into a play.
This one lady present has a definite distinction, nevertheless. American actress Jordan Baker lip-syncs to Higginbotham’s voice, as unbelievable as that sounds. Thus we hear the precise voice of the one who skilled these horrors, in addition to Cosson’s questions. As soon as the play begins, it’s a continuous recording, which implies Baker has to time her responses to fall completely inside Cosson’s voice. That Baker manages to tug this off is among the best feats of performing I’ve ever witnessed.
On the time, Hnath himself was a pupil in New York and knew nothing of what was occurring to his mom. In reality, Jim stored threatening Higginbotham with violence in the direction of her son, which was a method he stored her in his thrall.
Andrew Boyce’s set is a non-descript motel room. Baker sits in a chair on the finish of the mattress, holding what seems like a manuscript in her fingers. In the beginning of the play, we see her being fitted up with earphones, so the truth that she is lip-syncing isn’t hidden.
Solely as soon as does Baker go away the room, and that’s when the lodge maid (Stephanie Dilnot), is available in to scrub and alter the sheets. When she lifts the sheets, we see blood, the one bodily signal of Jim’s brutality that we witness within the play. In reality, Higginbotham tells us that there was by no means a time that she wasn’t coated in bruises.
Waters’ route is crammed with micro particulars. Each shift Baker makes in her chair is calculated. At some factors, when she is describing some significantly grotesque side of her captivity, we see her complete physique tense with remembered concern. Naturalism reigns supreme which is a triumph each for Baker and Waters. We’re additionally conscious of the tape itself, as we hear static and the pings the place some enhancing will need to have occurred.
We should always point out Janice Pytel’s costume for Baker, a saggy purple cardigan over a black prime and pants, which seems so excellent – snug put on for a really uncomfortable dialog. Paul Toben’s lighting makes the room look suitably dingy and claustrophobic, whereas Mikhail Fiksel’s sound design, together with some very edgy composed music, is a masterstroke.
Might an actor have recited the interview transcript? In fact. That’s what actors are educated to do, however the pure genius of listening to Higginbotham’s personal voice is completely unnerving.
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Paula Citron is a Toronto-based freelance arts journalist and broadcaster who hosts her personal web site, paulacitron.ca. For over 25 years, she was senior dance author for The Globe and Mail, affiliate editor of Opera Canada journal, arts reviewer for Classical 96.3 FM, and dance previews contributor to Toronto Life journal. She has been a visitor lecturer for numerous cultural teams and universities, significantly on the position of the critic/reviewer, and has been a panellist on COC podcasts. Earlier than assuming a full-time journalism profession, Ms. Citron was a member of the drama division of the Claude Watson College for the Arts.
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