A SPIRITS FACE by Jeff DHondt (Spiderbones Performing Arts). At Aki Studio, Daniels Spectrum (585 Dundas East). To June 14. $10-$20. 416-531-1402. See listings. Rating: NN
Sometimes it’s easier to forgive others than to forgive ourselves.
That’s the realization that Jake (Cole Alvis) and Hunter (Madison Walsh), former lovers, come to by the end of Jeff D’Hondt’s A Spirit’s Face. A look at loss, grief and reconciliation, the play has the best of intentions but doesn’t always deliver dramatically.
The characters share a history, coming from the same reserve, though they don’t connect until they’re grown-ups. Both trained as social workers, Jake as an addictions counsellor and Hunter in palliative care. A year after their breakup, Jake, in ill health, asks Hunter to take him on as a client.
The rest of the 80-minute play, directed by Ali Richardson, explores their past, both singly and together, as Jake tries, with Hunter’s help, to relive and hold onto his most positive memories.
Jake, who suffers from panic attacks and sometimes blurts out the most inappropriate things, is the better defined of the two characters, especially in Alvis’s visceral, spontaneous and emotionally accessible performance.
Hunter, used to subverting her desires, can communicate better through joking and playing board games than direct conversation. She’s strongly connected to her dead father, who’s made a spirit mask for his daughter so they will be linked even when he’s no longer around.
But while Hunter clearly grows over the course of the play, many of her lines have the quality of suggestive poetry rather than real feelings. Walsh’s presentation often fails to give them the naturalness of dialogue.
Still, there are some finely written scenes, notably on a lakeside that coincidentally is a shared favourite private spot Hunter’s mythic tale about the Healer and his counterpart, the Creator, which explains the importance of mask-making and the pair’s final fight, full of believably high emotions.
And the design elements – Andy Moro’s projections that present both the characters’ past and the current scenery, as well as Teodoro Dragonieri and Esther Dragonieri’s expressive mask – are simple but effective.
