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Crow’s Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Centre Theatre Group & Winery Theatre/Dana H, written by Lucas Hnath, directed by Les Waters, Manufacturing unit Theatre, closes Apr. 7. Tickets right here.
Dana H is a exceptional play, and regardless of its harrowing nature, is to not be missed.
This can be a manufacturing that started in Chicago. The play precipitated a sensation each off and on-Broadway in 2020-2021, and Les Waters, who directed the unique manufacturing, has additionally helmed this iteration. The work has been reimagined by the unique inventive crew, and rebuilt from the bottom up particularly for Toronto and the Manufacturing unit Theatre.
Lucas Hnath is a widely known American playwright, and theatre cognoscenti may keep in mind his opus, A Doll’s Home, Half 2 (2017), having a profitable run right here on the town a number of years again. His Dana H, nevertheless, is a play in contrast to something I’ve ever seen earlier than.
Dana H occurs to be Hnath’s mom, Dana Higginbotham. In 1997, she had, apparently, simply misplaced her job as a chaplain in a psychiatric unit at a Florida hospital, when she was kidnapped and traumatized by a drug-addicted, ex-convict, Aryan brother, and former affected person known as Jim.
For the subsequent 5 months she skilled a horrifying captivity, being dragged from motel to motel, because the psychopathic Jim did varied jobs for his white supremacist crime syndicate pals. When she did handle to flee, the terrified Higginbotham spent two and a half years hiding from Jim, working with a building gang. Hnath’s play is about these surprising occasions.
Hnath’s good friend Steve Cosson is a director, author, and creative director of The Civilians, an organization identified for docudrama and verbatim theatre. In 2015, Hnath requested Cosson to interview his mom in regards to the expertise, as she was then prepared to speak about it. He requested Cosson to do the interviews, slightly than himself, as he felt a impartial particular person was higher. Cosson recorded these interviews, which Hnath then common right into a play.
This one lady present has a definite distinction, nevertheless. American actress Jordan Baker lip-syncs to Higginbotham’s voice, as unbelievable as that sounds. Thus we hear the precise voice of the one that skilled these horrors, in addition to Cosson’s questions. As soon as the play begins, it’s a continuous recording, which implies Baker has to time her responses to fall completely inside Cosson’s voice. That Baker manages to tug this off is without doubt one of the biggest feats of appearing I’ve ever witnessed.
On the time, Hnath himself was a pupil in New York and knew nothing of what was taking place to his mom. In actual fact, Jim stored threatening Higginbotham with violence in the direction of her son, which was a technique he stored her in his thrall.
Andrew Boyce’s set is a non-descript motel room. Baker sits in a chair on the finish of the mattress, holding what appears like a manuscript in her palms. At the start of the play, we see her being fitted up with earphones, so the truth that she is lip-syncing isn’t hidden.
Solely as soon as does Baker depart the room, and that’s when the lodge maid (Stephanie Dilnot), is available in to wash and alter the sheets. When she lifts the sheets, we see blood, the one bodily signal of Jim’s brutality that we witness within the play. In actual fact, Higginbotham tells us that there was by no means a time that she wasn’t coated in bruises.
Waters’ path is stuffed with micro particulars. Each shift Baker makes in her chair is calculated. At some factors, when she is describing some significantly grotesque side of her captivity, we see her complete physique tense with remembered concern. Naturalism reigns supreme which is a triumph each for Baker and Waters. We’re additionally conscious of the tape itself, as we hear static and the pings the place some modifying will need to have occurred.
We must always point out Janice Pytel’s costume for Baker, a dishevelled pink cardigan over a black high and pants, which appears so good – comfy put on for a really uncomfortable dialog. Paul Toben’s lighting makes the room look suitably dingy and claustrophobic, whereas Mikhail Fiksel’s sound design, together with some very edgy composed music, is a masterstroke.
May an actor have recited the interview transcript? After all. That’s what actors are educated to do, however the pure genius of listening to Higginbotham’s personal voice is totally unnerving.
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Paula Citron is a Toronto-based freelance arts journalist and broadcaster who hosts her personal web site, paulacitron.ca. For over 25 years, she was senior dance author for The Globe and Mail, affiliate editor of Opera Canada journal, arts reviewer for Classical 96.3 FM, and dance previews contributor to Toronto Life journal. She has been a visitor lecturer for varied cultural teams and universities, significantly on the function of the critic/reviewer, and has been a panellist on COC podcasts. Earlier than assuming a full-time journalism profession, Ms. Citron was a member of the drama division of the Claude Watson Faculty for the Arts.
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