THE TEST by Lukas Bärfuss, translated by Birgit Schreyer Duarte, directed by Jason Byrne, with Eric Peterson, Sonja Smits, Gord Rand, Liisa Repo-Martell and Philip Riccio. Presented by the Company Theatre and Canadian Stage at the Berkeley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley). Previews begin Monday (October 31), opens November 3 and runs to November 26, Monday-Saturday 8 pm, matinees Wednesday 1:30 pm and Saturday 2 pm. $22-$49. 416-368-3110. See listing.
“Who’s your daddy?” asks country singer Toby Keith in his decade-old song.
That question worries the characters in Lukas Bärfuss’s The Test, the latest from always intriguing troupe the Company Theatre.
Tinged with dark humour, The Test looks at Peter, who starts to doubt that his infant son is really his offspring. His politician father’s scheming assistant, Franzeck, plants the seeds of doubt and the possibility of infidelity by Peter’s wife, Agnes.
If the triangle of husband/wife/conniving friend sounds familiar, think back to Shakespeare’s Othello.
“Yes, there are parallels of contrived, irrational jealousy here,” admits Gord Rand, who plays Peter in the Company/Canadian Stage co-pro. “We wonder why Iago does what he does and why Othello reacts as he does. There are no clear-cut answers in either play.”
But here the roots of doubt go deeper, dragging in Peter’s parents, Simon and Helle, as well as the other three characters.
“Ironically, at times Peter seems more concerned about his relationship with his parents than about his relationship with Agnes and the baby,” says Rand, a playwright as well as an actor.
In rehearsal, what’s central in the play has been changing every day as the company works with director Jason Byrne.
“What I focus on keeps mutating,” says Rand. “The dynamics and relationships are in turmoil, constantly boiling up in different directions.”
What doesn’t change is the importance of the paternity test suggested by the title it becomes Peter’s chance to know the truth.
“I see it as a way in which he explores the primitive need to be certain of his lineage. Is there a difference between loving a son who’s biologically your offspring and loving a son who’s not? That topic arouses feelings that you’re somewhat ashamed to dig around in, but that’s what makes it the stuff of drama.”
The Test is just the sort of difficult, dark show in which Rand’s often cast.
As the troubled title character in Necessary Angel’s unusual take on Hamlet, a character searching for answers about genocide and individual responsibility in Goodness and even the semi-comic Christy Mahon in The Playboy Of The Western World, Rand creates figures who twitch with the tension of searching for their proper place in an uncertain world.
“I appreciate that directors like Jason, Graham McLaren and the late Gina Wilkinson have pushed me toward theatre that feels alive, that’s happening in the moment. That rejuvenates me as an actor and a writer.”
He previously worked with Byrne in the Shaw production of The Cherry Orchard, but also admired the director’s productions of A Whistle In The Dark and Festen.
“I love works that blur the distinction between reality and fiction, that trick me about where one ends and the other begins. Jason allows the audience to spy on the play’s action they’re watching, as if through a keyhole.
“I think that’s why people go to the theatre instead of the movies: there’s a constant game going on, a quality of being complicit in what’s happening onstage.”
jonkap@nowtoronto.com
