SWIMMER (68) by Ker Wells (Hopscotch Collective). At the Glen Morris (4 Glen Morris). To June 4. $20, stu $15. 416-978-7986. See listing Rating: NNNN
In 1968, John Cheever’s short story The Swimmer was adapted into a film featuring a robust Burt Lancaster as a man on a devastating odyssey through suburban pools.
In Swimmer (68), writer/performer Ker Wells dives into the glowing waters of his own childhood, shifting between familial recollections and fragments of old movies and notable events like Kennedy’s assassination and the 69 moon landing, producing a sensitive, almost cubist articulation of adulthood as seen through the eyes of a child.
Wells’s athletic grace and unaffected charm engage from the moment he runs soaking wet into the space, invoking Lancaster’s taut physicality and manic gaze. He’s mesmerizing, especially when describing his playful Uncle Dave, spinning a chair with one hand and singing Roll Me Over In The Clover. You can feel the child’s fascination with the glamour of adulthood – something that generally dissolves by the time you reach it yourself.
Director and co-creator Bruce Barton’s elegant use of a few props, lighting and space generate an immensely suggestive mise-en-scene. Cameron Davis’s projections are some of his subtlest and most effective to date: cigarette smoke drifting across a lampshade luminous frames from the film surfacing for moments on the floor, which is painted to replicate the aquamarine pulse of the bottom of a swimming pool.
There’s something evasive about Wells’s composite character and his narrative, but the actor’s buoyant performance and the beautiful production capture a world with less gravity than our own.
