cicadas
CICADAS by David Yee and Chris Thornborrow, directed by Nina Lee Aquino: “The opposite of maths is faith,” says a mathematics professor (Ellora Patnaik) whose star pupil (Ryan Holliman) marries her daughter (Monica Dottor). Over the course of two acts that mix acting, movement and wonderful music (composed by Thornborrow), the play suggests they’re not all that far apart.
Holliman and Dottor have bought their first house in Toronto. Despite warnings from their real estate agent (also Patnaik, who plays five roles in all), they go into the basement to find it filled with water that then vanishes. Dottor is pregnant and planning a water birth. When it’s time, she finds the basement full of water again and delivers the child there. But on their daughter’s fourth birthday, she vanishes into the house with the words, “Help” appearing on the wall but with a backwards “E,” the math symbol meaning “there is.” All this is interwoven with scenes from the past involving Dottor’s mother in which she speaks of the certainty of mathematics in an uncertain world.
This sounds like heady stuff, a pseudo-philosophical take on a TWILIGHT ZONE episode. But the production goes deeper, questioning how much we can know about the universe. It also questions the right of Toronto to exist. A housing inspector (Inspector Gadget, pronounce “gad-jay”) reveals the house has been sinking because it’s built over the junction of two rivers that had been covered over to allow the city to spread. The presence of cicadas in the basement that routinely knock themselves out trying to escape through a window suggests the house and by extension the city has upset the natural balance of things. It’s wiping out the environment. But like so many other Canadian cities, Toronto was also constructed over lands once owned by First Nations. The cities are supplanting not just nature but also an entire people. For this play, the opening land acknowledgment, now a tradition in Toronto theatre, feels like part of the production.
Aquino is a master director who stages with a great sense of how visuals and sound can reinforce a play’s meaning. Jawon Kong’s set is an abstract arrangement of doors, stairs and platforms that can be used as a variety of settings besides the house. At the start, large portions are draped in sheer material, emphasizing the house’s abandoned status and creating a sense of mystery. Thornborrow’s music — scored for keyboard, percussion, flute and cello — works with this, creating an otherworldly feel. Yee’s dialog captures that mystical sense without becoming ponderous while creating some welcome comic effects, and the cast is more than up to the challenge. Patnaik differentiates her characters clearly and has great comic timing. Holliman and Dottor, who carry most of the play together, have a great sense of ensemble. You half expect them to finish each other’s sentences off-stage. My only quibble is with the use of abstract movement, mainly because it doesn’t quite feel finished. Maybe the production team wanted to avoid having the cast seem to be professional dancers (Patnaik is, and Dottor staged the movement), but there’s something inchoate about the movement that doesn’t mesh with the actors’ proficiency in the rest of the play.
