Kill Me Now

At the Firehall Arts Centre until October 27, 2018
Tickets from $20 at 604-689-0926 or tickets.firehallartscentre.ca

Posted October 24, 2018

Kill Me Now is a play that makes you glad to be alive. And it reminds you how terrifyingly thin and fragile is the connection between good and ill health. One day great; the next, flat on your back. Written by Canadian playwright Brad Fraser, Kill Me Now is also surprisingly funny and, not in an Anne of Green Gables sort of way, uplifting.

Fraser gives us the Sturdy family – an on-the-nose-surname: single father Jake (Bob Frazer), his severely physically disabled teenaged son Joey (Adam Grant Warren) and Jake’s sister Twyla (Luisa Jojic), a late 30s or early 40s woman with relationship and alcohol issues. Add to the mix Robyn (Corina Akeson), the married woman with whom Jake spends every Tuesday evening – while telling Joey and Twyla he’s off playing hockey – and Joey’s friend Rowdy (Braiden Houle), a porn-watching, weed-smoking, fetal alcohol syndrome survivor with a wicked wit and, says Rowdy, “a really big dick” followed guilessly by, “Am I being inappropriate?”

Inappropriate and taboo are what playwright Fraser (True Love Lies, True Nature of Love, Poor Superman and others) does really well. Wheel-chair restricted and severely vocally impaired, Joey is going through puberty: he’s horny as hell and despite his father’s protestations to the contrary, there’s a very good chance Joey will never find a woman – other than a caring, sensitive prostitute – to get him off. Kill Me Now opens with Jake bathing Joey in the tub; just the simple action of a warm washcloth gives Joey an erection that he is physically incapable of satisfying. What is a loving father to do?

As for that loving father, how much is too much? When Joey indicates he wants to move into an apartment with Rowdy, Jake is hurt and angry. But exactly whom is he protecting? Joey or himself? And what about Jake’s ongoing affair with Robyn, a married woman and mother of two? Under the circumstances is her infidelity okay?

These are all flawed, all very real characters struggling under difficult circumstances that lead, eventually, to the question of euthanasia.

While the Sturdy family is dysfunctional, not necessarily by choice but by circumstance, under Roy Surette’s thoughtful, sensitive direction for Touchstone Theatre, the Kill Me Now cast is quite clearly another kind of family: tight knit, caring, risk-taking, supportive and most of all, loving. If it’s a one-time emotional workout for the audience, this cast of five goes through this night after night. For Bob Frazer the workout isn’t just emotional, it’s eventually physical, too. When Jake feels pain, your gut clenches in sympathy. And when his heart is breaking, yours will, too. NB: Mark Hildreth will portray Jake on Wednesday, October 24 in place of Bob Frazer.

Elsewhere, Kill Me Now has been produced with an able-bodied actor playing Joey. Surette rejected that and, happily, found Adam Grant Warren, a writer/director/actor who works from a wheelchair. His Joey is so honest and so real and, ultimately, so wise. While Warren’s speech is unimpaired, Joey’s is fractured and it is sometimes difficult to understand what Joey is saying. That’s very frustrating when most of the audience ‘gets’ a line and others don’t. But in the play, Robyn confesses she is slightly afraid of Joey and when questioned by him, she admits she doesn’t always understand what he is saying. We’ve all been there: not wanting to offend, not wanting to feel stupid. So it’s appropriate – but risky – that the audience is put in the same position.

As Twyla, Jojic is jumpy, defensive and broken. Not quite ringing true is the relationship she forges with Rowdy, the comedic centre of the play and, like Shakespeare’s fools, often the wisest character on stage – certainly one of the most honest.

In Robyn, the playwright has created a character that at the start is not able or willing to be emotionally available. Akeson takes a journey that several times takes you to the edge of heartbreak and tears. Warm and considerate, Robyn becomes, de facto, mother of this motherless family.

All this drama and humour happens on David Roberts revolving set: a down-market hotel room, an uncared-for kitchen, and a basic bathroom with tub. Just the facts. It’s perfect.

Running an hour and fifty minutes with no intermission, Kill Me Now should feel long. It doesn’t. And, given the material, it should leave you depressed. It doesn’t. Without a lot of fanfare, it shows a broken family coming together through harrowing misfortune because they care for each other.