COMMUNION written and directed by Daniel MacIvor, with Sarah Dodd, Caroline Gillis and Athena Lamarre (Tarragon, 30 Bridgman). Previews through Tuesday (March 2), opens Wednesday (March 3) and runs to April 4, Tuesday-Saturday 8 pm, matinees Saturday-Sunday 2:30 pm (no matinee February 27). $33-$39, previews $20, stu/srs discounts. 416-531-1827. See listing.
We all hold onto a belief system, whether it’s religion, psychotherapy or atheism.[rssbreak]
The three characters in Daniel MacIvor’s Communion are initially fervent in their beliefs. But over the course of the play, we see cracks in the foundation of all three: mother Leda, her estranged daughter, Ann, and Leda’s therapist, Carolyn.
“Ann is a born-again Christian, and at first I saw her in very simple terms,” says Athena Lamarre, who plays the role. “She hates her mother, was converted to a Christian sect and that’s that. I thought she had nothing to do with the journey her mother goes on, that everything was cut and dried.”
Now, though, after working for four weeks with MacIvor, who also directs, Lamarre see a different person.
“Ann’s a young woman who grew up motherless, someone desperate to belong somewhere. She’s created the place she’s in, but she’s not accepting either that place or herself.”
Lamarre’s thrilled to be working with MacIvor and at a mainstream theatre like the Tarragon.
“I still see myself as fresh out of the gate,” she admits, “though I graduated from George Brown Theatre seven years ago, where I studied and worked on Daniel’s plays.”
I remember seeing her at George Brown and being struck by her talent, in productions that ranged from The Threepenny Opera to Angels In America. You might have caught her work as the intense, streetwise kid looking for her father in The Gladstone Variations.
Her portrayal of Ann promises to be just as riveting. Surprisingly, tapping into the character wasn’t as hard as the actor initially imagined.
“Trying to come up with who Ann is made me look at my own belief system,” she recalls. “It’s not Christian, as is the case with some religious people in my own life, but I knew I had to make Ann’s beliefs truthful.
“I realized I could do that by wedding her passion with what I do and believe myself. My yoga classes and the prayers we say there have the same essence of truth, even though the words are different.
“We all believe in something that makes a statement about who we are. It might be anything from a traditional belief system to reality TV or Oprah Winfrey. That need is one of the things that makes us human.”
Lamarre shifts away from serious talk to point out that Communion, for all its intense relationships, is a pretty funny play.
“I work in comedy and clown a lot” – she and her sister Rebecca Leonard have an aerial comedy show called Cognac And Sausages – “but the comedy here is more subtle. It’s the truth of the situation that’s funny. You can’t work for laughs, but by playing the material straight, the sheer humanity of the moment is hilarious.”
MacIvor’s structured the play as a series of three two-characters scenes. Ann doesn’t appear until a third of the way through the play, though she’s discussed by her mother in the first scene.
“That gave me lots of choices in how I present Ann. I could be the person Leda describes, but that’s not necessarily the true Ann.
“I see her as having a hard crust on top and a mushy inside. Playing her is like walking a tightrope. I can’t be too much of this or too much of that.
“Performing the role keeps me on my toes.”
jonkap@nowtoronto.com
