Marine Life

At the Firehall Arts Centre until March 23, 2019
Tickets from $12 at tickets.firehallartscentre.ca or 604-689-0926

Posted March 17, 2019

Jordan Watkins and Ryan McDonald’s video design for Marine Life is so beautiful you just want to put up your umbrella or dive in and swim with the fishes. Projected on a large screen that completely fills the upstage wall are images of a river flowing past trees; rain streaming down windows; silhouettes of people standing before a large tank at the aquarium as sharks, rays and fish swim by; and rising flood waters as parts of Vancouver go underwater following an unprecedented downpour. It’s a watery world, the result of climate change, that playwright Rosa Labordé envisions and that the Ruby Slippers Theatre design team creates so beautifully on the Firehall stage.

Living in this particular world are Rupert (Sebastien Archibald), John/Juan (Alen Dominguez) and Sylvia (Christine Quintana). Sylvia is a young, outspoken environmental activist so concerned about the state of the oceans that she makes her emotionally unstable brother John pee into a jar rather than have his medication-laden urine flushed down the toilet where it will eventually enter the sea. Abandoned by their Mexican father and orphaned on the death of their mother, John sometimes imagines himself as a Mexican –  referring to himself as Juan, speaking Spanish, wearing an outrageous sombrero and playing mariachi music on his guitar. At other times he is a whimpering mess of insecurity. Sylvia and John live together and she has undertaken his necessary and continuing care. Rupert is a corporate lawyer and apparently unaware or unconcerned about the state of the planet.

 

A chance encounter brings Sylvia and Rupert together and despite what Sylvia calls “ideological differences”, there’s a spark. He’s funny and prepared to make concessions; she’s ready for love and happy to educate him.

In the playwright’s notes, Labordé argues passionately against overproduction, overconsumption and our planet-destroying ways but says, “I have never been one for didacticism or ‘teaching moments’. I prefer a lighter touch, a playful way in; laughter, magic, music…”  But Marine Life, in seeking this lighter touch,  is heavy on silliness: Rupert arrives at Sylvia’s place wearing a wetsuit, diving mask, snorkel and flippers, for example. And the play drifts toward myth after Sylvia gets rescued by the Mexican Coast Guard after floating around on the ocean “for days.”

Like one of the characters, Labordé metaphorically shoots herself in the foot with funniness. Admittedly, it’s a very tough job pulling off a play about the possible end of the world without depressing the audiences. But a steady stream of clever, funny lines undercuts the serious nature of the subject.

Terrific performances keep Marine Life from tanking completely. Under Diane Brown’s always sensitive direction, Christine Quintana throws herself into the role with commitment and passion. Labordé suggests in her notes that activist Sylvia, “tired of being ignored, verges on the fanatic” and Quintana certainly signals Sylvia’s frustration. But she’s playful, too.

Sebastien Archibald’s Rupert gets a lot of smart and funny quips so that we don’t really get to know who the real Rupert is. Can he ever be what Sylvia needs? Will he give up tuna sandwiches and the plastic implant – about which no more will be revealed here?

As for John/Juan, Labordé says calls him, “an artist whose hypersensitivity longs for escape or annihilation”.  I had no sense of the character as “an artist” and when his so-called hypersensitivity becomes the overt and nasty manipulation of Sylvia, it’s impossible to remain sympathetic. Actor Alen Dominguez is left swimming against the tide.

I’m all for plays about climate change and the urgent need to change our earth-destroying ways, but Labordé’s script simply missed my boat.