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Culture Stage

>>> The Just is exceptional

THE JUST by Albert Camus, translated by Bobby Theodore (Soulpepper). At Young Centre (50 Tank House). Runs to March 26. $32-$96, rush $5-$25. 416-866-8666. See listing. Rating: NNNN


We’re always the heroes of our own stories. By our codes of honour, sacred or secular, our actions can be justified – at least until we start looking at things from the other side.

Soulpepper’s riveting production of Albert Camus’s The Just presents us with scattered perspectives, from the fragmented intentions of a terrorist cell to our own splintering sympathies for them. Subtle or explosive, each shift in the story asks us to consider order in an orderless world. If justice – and love – is relative, how do we decide what it’s relative to?

The Just was written in response to the Nazi occupation of France and premiered in 1949 but is set during the 1905 revolution in Russia. Five members of a fringe organization come together to carry out the assassination of Russian Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. This revolutionary act means something different to each participant –revenge, freedom, solidarity – but once the deed is done, it’s as if a glass has shattered. Points of view fragment and prior convictions seem impossibly naive.

The cast is uniformly strong, with a palpable chemistry that constantly surprises. Brendan Wall’s broken Stepan carries a beating heart and Raquel Duffy rides a carefully crafted and tragic arc as chemist Dora. Diego Matamoros is especially captivating as Boris, the group’s patriarch. His ability to see from all angles makes him a diplomatic leader, but that comes with a price: he knows the world will always be in revolution. Matamoros gives us a man for whom life and death, joy and despair are indistinguishable but distinct, like two sides of a slowly spinning coin. It’s incredible to watch.

Superb onstage work is matched by an ace creative team. Director Frank Cox-O’Connell elicits impressive contrasts and keeps tensions high without compromising the play’s slow and steady rise. Debashis Sinha’s sound design is evocative and visceral, and pulls us into Ken MacKenzie’s impressively versatile set.

If you’re familiar with Camus, you know The Just doesn’t give us answers. Instead, we’re left with questions. Is violence in the name of peace justifiable? What separates the heroes from the villains? And who gets to tell the story? If you don’t know, you’re not alone: a look across the production’s corridor stage will reveal rows of faces struggling with the same questions. It’s oddly comforting to see that no matter where we’re sitting, nothing is simple.    

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