WE KEEP COMING BACK by Michael Rubenfeld, Sarah Garton Stanley, Mary Berchard and Katka Reszke (Selfconscious/Factory). At Factory Theatre (125 Bathurst). Runs to November 25. $20-$50. 416-504-9971, factorytheatre.ca. See listing. Rating: NNNN
For 90 minutes, Michael Rubenfeld, his mother in real life, Mary Berchard, and actor/collaborator Katka Reszke remember and argue about their real-life trip to Poland they took in 2012. Thats it, actually. But what a powerful exchange it is you dont need gizmos, gadgets and gaudy light shows to create great theatre.
Rubenfeld has always had a hard time with his mom, a child of Holocaust survivors, and he senses that a journey back to his mothers birth country may help to heal their bond. Reszke accompanies them as their translator alongside Rubenfelds long-time creative partner (and show director), Sarah Garton Stanley.
With only a bench and a bed deployed onstage as movable parts, mother and son tell their story, with Reszke intervening with details along the way. Typical of the low-tech approach is the fact that, at the outset, Rubenfeld attaches himself to his mother via a long rope, a surprisingly uncheesy visual metaphor for the umbilical cord.
As much as its about a mother-sons fractious relationship, the play is also a meditation on fractured memory. The group admits theyre not even sure whether the town they explored was actually Berchards birth town. Berchards mother back home vacillates as to where her house was actually located. As much as they crave closure, sometimes the memories dont materialize.
The producing company is called Selfconscious, aptly named here, as Rubenfeld agonizes over his personal story and his familys suffering. And hes prepared to be challenged when he occasionally addresses the audience. At one point he spars with Reszke, whos discovered her parents hid their Jewish roots by pretending to be Catholic, over who holds the greater trauma and consults the audience to get their take. In the performance I saw, not every viewer was easy on him. Rubenfeld plainly took it in.
He is charismatic as usual, venting furiously, while Reszke is more cerebral but equally compelling. And Berchard, who has a face that can convey heartbreaking emotion, may not be a professional actor but she has wonderful timing, delivering droll one-liners with finesse. Its theme is the Holocaust, but this piece has its share of laughs.
We Keep Coming Back is not driven only by text. Under Trevor Schwellnuss design direction, Reszke video-records the exchanges between mother and son, which screen simultaneously with the arguments onstage, and video taken on the journey to Poland, including Auschwitz, acts often as a backdrop. As if the documentation will cement memory.
But its really the emotion that drives this intimate and wholly original work.
