by Albert Camus.
Adapted by Lauren Gillis and Alaine Hutton.
A contemporary greek tragicomedy; an animalistic rendering of Camus’ Absurd implodes in a wasted town with more suicides than sunny days.
Spend the evening at an inn run by Martha, a stunted spinster still living with her Mother as her 20’s wave goodbye. She’s taken to drugging well-off guests, emptying their pockets, and throwing their bodies into the river. With every interaction distorted by malfunctioning technology, awkward situations and dire consequences emerge when a familiar stranger takes a room at the inn.
The Misunderstanding examines the repercussions of hiding your intentions and suppressing your desires.
A phantasmagorical, butoh-infused theatrical experience. Cold tea will be served
Directed by Lauren Gillis
Translated by Graham Ley
Movement Dramaturgy : Denise Fujiwara
Performers : Alaine Hutton, Justin Miller and The Mother
Set Design : Michelle Tracey
Costume Design : Amanda Wong
Lighting Design : Linn Øyen Farley
Sound Design : Wesley Mckenzie
Stage Management : Joey Condello
photos by Peter Demas, Doug Hamilton
2014
“The Misunderstanding is a great opportunity to feel horrified by futility. It’ll make your chest squeeze and your skin crawl.
Many surreal stage elements combine with excellently realized lighting (Linn Oyen Farley) and sound design (Wesley Mackenzie) to create a truly unsettling atmosphere that perfectly supports the sinister plot.
The actors all seem uniquely well-suited to their roles, which is a testament to their skill, but I think the greatest strength of all three performances is their physicality. The dialogue is spare, mainly serving to carry the plot and deliver a number of harshly funny exchanges, and so most of the communication occurs in the actors’ movements and body language. The staging is impressive and the script is interesting, but it’s the actual physical embodiment of the characters that transmits the emotion and makes this play so affecting.
Alaine Hutton, artistic director of Lester Trips Theatre, plays the daughter with a brittleness that seems perpetually on the verge of shattering. The awkward rigidity of her posture betrays the rage that she struggles to contain. Meanwhile, Justin Miller plays the son with gangly sincerity, puffing himself up and putting on airs to hide his nervousness. The actor who plays the mother — listed in the playbill only as “The Mother” — is a wafting, drunken mess, swooping and swaying around the stage and doing her best to stay floating above a lifetime’s collected bitterness.
The Misunderstanding is an excellent example of a contemporary theatre company using innovative techniques to explore a classic work of drama.”
— MOONEY ON THEATRE by Mark Mann
