DOC by Sharon Pollock, directed by Diana Leblanc, with Derek Boyes, Carmen Grant, Hannah Gross, Jane Spidell and R.H. Thomson. Presented by Soulpepper at the Young Centre (55 Mill). Opens tonight (Thursday, August 26) and runs to September 18, Monday-Saturday 8 pm, mats Wednesday and Saturday 2 pm. $31.20-$75.33, stu $29, rush $20 (stu $5). 416-866-8666. See listing.
Actor Jane Spidell’s getting lots of practice being drunk these days.[rssbreak]
It’s not in the bar after a show, but onstage in Sharon Pollock’s hard-hitting Doc, the Governor General’s Award winner about Bob, a frustrated wife and mother who finds solace in the bottle.
Doc begins with the reunion of Bob’s husband, Ev, and their daughter Catherine years after Bob’s death. Drifting back into their memories, it presents Catherine both in the present and as the younger Katie, with father and child remembering Bob’s battles against her life’s disappointments.
“It’s important to see the action in the context of its time, the 40s or early 50s,” notes Spidell, a fine performer most recently in Peggy Pickit Sees The Face Of God.
“Bob is a nurse who married a doctor, and that action limits her work choice, especially in the Fredericton community where Ev is a man of position and authority.
“What was expected was that she would be happy to raise a family, join the IODE and play bridge, not go back to nursing after the wedding.”
But Bob, as good at her job as her husband is at his, wants more. As ambitious, competitive and smart as Ev, she still feels the social pressure to conform and can’t find a way out.
“So she finds a friend in the bottle,” says Spidell with an unhappy shrug, “and the unfortunate truth is that she takes out her frustrations on Katie. She doesn’t want to do it, but it happens.
“Bob’s story is one that starts with hope – she’s a hell of a good nurse – but shifts into despair.”
The play also brings up, in terms of all the characters but especially for Katie/Catherine, what Spidell calls “those questions we ask ourselves in private moments, moments of ineffable wondering: What does it mean to be alive, to be who I am, to exist?”
What’s fascinating about the story is the way Pollock tells it: the shifts into memory provide a kaleidoscopic view of the characters, with the twin figures of Katie/Catherine allowed to interact with each other in order to remember the horrors of the past and offer a chance of comfort.
The shifts in time are purposeful, and Spidell has a way of making sense of them for herself and the audience.
“I started by plotting them out for myself intellectually, but then I just let go and followed along. The shifts make sense emotionally, and the action moves so quickly that it’s thrilling just to travel along with it. As an actor, you find a moment, use it, let it go and move on the result is more like life than like a story you’re telling viewers.”
Spidell’s even started a correspondence with Pollock, who based the play in part on her own family. Pollock’s father was a popular Fredericton doctor who, like Ev, had a hospital named after him. The playwright’s input helped inform the actor’s take on the narrative, and Spidell scouted out locations and took photos when she visited Fredericton earlier this year (see blog.soulpepper.ca).
“Sharon was so open in her thoughts,” says Spidell, smiling. “I feel like I have a new pen pal, and I can’t wait to meet her during the run of the show.”
Additional Interview Clip
On playing drunk
jonkap@nowtoronto.com
