Redbone Coonhound

 

Newmont Stage, BMO Theatre Centre until October 30, 2022
Tickets from $25 at 604-687-1644 or www.artsclub.com

Posted October 26, 2022

Commissioned by the Arts Club and directed jointly by Ashlie Corcoran and Omari Newton, Redbone Coonhound is as good-looking and great sounding as, well, an actual Redbone Coonhound. Years ago I purchased my first Bluetick Coonhound (Luke) and Black-and-Tan Coonhound (Sadie). Affectionately known as Puke and Seedy by a neighbour who was not nearly as enamored of the baying or the handsome breed as I was, Luke sired several litters and Sadie produced more than a dozen roly-poly black and tan puppies. But I really, really wanted a Redbone Coonhound – bigger, jowlier and longer-eared than the Bluetick or Black-and-Tan; and it was the dog on the Beverly Hillbillies’ porch. And I knew – unlike some of the characters in Omari Newton and Amy Lee Lavoie’s play – that the ‘coon’ in coonhound referred to raccoons, a critter that the hounds are famous for treeing, and not a derogatory term for Black people.

Right off the top in the play, interracial couple Marissa (Emma Slipp) and Mike (Jesse Lipscombe) are at odds when they encounter an off-leash dog that dog owner Jeffrey (Gerry Mackay) and his wife (Nancy Kerr) proudly identify as a Redbone Coonhound that Jeffrey has had shipped from Louisiana. He’s smug. Marissa goes gaga over the dog while Mike cowers as the dog keeps crotch-sniffing and hounding him. Later, they argue about the term ‘coon’. He accuses her of racial insensitivity and she accuses him of being too sensitive.

Also at odds are Mike and his Black cop friend Gerald (Kwesi Ameyaw) when Gerald and his wife Aisha (Emerjade Simms) come over to Mike and Marissa’s place one evening. More arguments: husbands versus wives; Mike versus Gerald. The evening comes to a very shocking end. The sound heard in the theatre the time I attended  was the sound of jaws dropping.

Fifth wheel in the evening gathering is the couples’ mutual Caucasian friend Jordan (Sebastien Archibald) and thank goodness for him: Archibald is very funny as the goofy guy who doesn’t really seem to see what the problem is.

So: lots of arguments, lots of tension and lots of witty dialogue. But although all around me were laughing, I didn’t find Redbone Coonhound all that funny. Clever, yes. Kevin McAllister and Jonathan Kim’s set and light design, respectively, terrific. Projection design by Sammy Chien and Caroline MacCaull, fantastic. Owen Belton’s sound design, grand.  CS Fergusson-Vaux’s costumes, including two that are out of this world, wonderful. Production values could not be higher. Performances could not be better.

The realism of the interaction between the  five friends is interspersed with fantasy sequences but I was never really engaged at either level except for that one shocking moment. And it’s a real shocker.

Even more shocking was an incident I experienced in the washroom after the show. And I only relate it here because it made me wonder whether we actually learn anything from theatre or whether, in the words of writer/social commentator Neil Postman, we are simply amusing ourselves to death. There was a lineup. “You touched me,” a woman yelled at the small woman in a mask behind her. The accused quietly either denied it or said she was sorry. Hard to hear her, so soft-spoken she was. “You touched me”, the woman loudly repeated and, heading to a stall, flung over her shoulder, “Cunt.” Shock. I made a, “What was that all about?” gesture and the small woman returned it with a shrug. For a split second I thought perhaps the whole thing had been staged to see if anyone would step forward to defend one or confront the other but the moment passed. After a play about intolerance, insensitivity and, especially, the power of words to wound, how could this possibly have just happened? I am still shocked and more than a little ashamed that I did nothing.