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Culture Theatre

Review: Brimstone and Treacle

BRIMSTONE AND TREACLE by Dennis Potter (Precisely Peter). At SideMart Theatrical Grocery (1362 Queen East). Runs to May 17. $25. brownpapertickets.com. See Continuing. Rating: NNN

British writer Dennis Potter (Pennies From Heaven, The Singing Detective) was never known for sugar-coating his TV plays.

Brimstone And Treacle, a stage adaptation of a 1970s script filmed but not shown for a decade, deals with racism, religion and rape in a middle-class home.

Tom Bates (Rod Ceballos) and his wife, Amy (Brigitte Robinson), care for their adult daughter, Pattie (Nicole Wilson), left quadriplegic by a hit-and-run accident two years earlier. Amy’s convinced the inarticulate Pattie can understand and react to them Tom thinks of her as a “cabbage.”

Their household increases with the arrival of the nattily dressed and charming Martin Taylor (Scott Garland), who found Tom’s wallet and returns it. He discovers when he arrives that they are the parents of Pattie, whom he claims was the love of his life in art school.

Martin insinuates himself into the family, though his occasional literal nods and winks to the audience suggest he may not be what he seems. In fact, it’s possible that he’s the Devil, out to seduce and ruin whomever he can.

Director John Shooter‘s intimate production brings us into this troubled home, and a number of scenes are excitingly immediate. Most of them involve Robinson and Garland, whose nuanced and increasingly dependent relationship combines humour with horror we recognize Martin’s enticing, complimentary manipulations, though Amy doesn’t. Their scene of intense prayer over Pattie is both funny and off-putting.

Ceballos, though, never reaches beyond a stolid embodiment of Tom, inclined toward right-wing politics, disdain for his wife and a desire to return to the good old days, both in terms of his daughter’s health and who his neighbours are. Once Martin learns which buttons to push, Tom becomes an easy target, but there’s not much change in how Ceballos presents him.

Some of the violence – verbal and physical – may be hard to watch, but there’s no denying Potter’s cleverness, which leaves us wondering if the play’s final moments bestow a blessing or a curse.

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