Calamity, absurd humour and a glimmer of hope
And So It Goes
* Written and directed by George F. Walker
* Starring Peter Donaldson, Martha Burns
* At Factory Theatre in Toronto
After a 10-year hiatus from writing for the stage, George F. Walker is back with a startling new play about a couple, Ned and Gwen, whose schizophrenic daughter is brutally murdered.
In the aftermath, they lose their savings, their home and their grip on reality. Ned (Peter Donaldson) ends up spending his days as a street-corner preacher, while Gwen (Martha Burns) guards shoes from thieves in a homeless shelter.
Oh - and did I mention it's a comedy?
At the beginning of And So It Goes, Gwen and Ned's daughter, Karen (Jenny Young) is still alive, but adrift in her own world - paranoid, bipolar and on trial for a violent assault.
Ned, who recently lost his job in financial services, tries to be kind and patient with his daughter. But Gwen, who has been at home with her longer, is angry and frightened. "There will come a time when even your bottomless well of love and concern will be sucked dry," she tells her husband.
Estranged from most of her friends since her daughter became ill, Gwen spills her heart out to her one, remaining confidant: Kurt Vonnegut (Jerry Franken). Yes, that Kurt Vonnegut, the late writer of Cat's Cradle and Breakfast of Champions.
When Ned discovers this, he becomes jealous - after all, he introduced her to the writer’s work in happier times - and so begins a relationship with his own, private Vonnegut as well.
Later, after Karen is killed, both Gwen and Ned add an idealized version of her to their store of imaginary conversationalists, as well.
Walker's unconventional use of imaginary friends on stage turns out to be a brilliant device. It allows us to hear what is going on inside each character's head, while avoiding obvious or undramatic monologues.
We can see how Gwen and Ned wish their daughter had turned out, and, reflected in Vonnegut, how they wish to be seen, as witty or wise.
As Gwen's own mental state declines, her Vonnegut even allows us a glimpse at the darker, demented thoughts she tries to keep at bay as the imagined author chillingly describes a world overrun with cannibals.
And So It Goes gets its title from the repeated, shrugging refrain that greets each death in Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut's sci-fi novel based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Second World War.
Similarly, Walker views each new calamity visited upon this family from a self-protective distance, as Ned and Gwen sink lower and lower in a series of short, abrupt scenes. The play becomes funnier and funnier the worse things get. And in the end - as Gwen and Ned speak to each other instead of their imaginary friends (Vonnegut watching far off from across the stage) - there's a glimmer of hope.
Burns establishes the tone with her heartbreaking Gwen - witty on the surface, but with underlying pain jutting through. Donaldson, his head completely shaven, initially has difficulty finding the right note for Ned, but as his docile Mr. Magoo persona becomes more unhinged his performance becomes riveting.
Ned's confused attempts to make sense of the world are the source of much of the play's humour, with his Vonnegut acting as a straight man.
One of the vague, but aggressive slogans Ned carries around on a piece of cardboard reads: "Fight the Power.” "What power? Fight how?" asks Vonnegut. When Ned flips the sign over, it reads: "Be the power" and he beams, as if this all made perfect sense.
Walker directs his own work on an ominous urban landscape designed by Shawn Kerwin. There are too many clunky blackouts between scenes, making the short play feel more disjointed than it is. It doesn't help that they are filled with electric-guitar pieces composed by John Roby that conjure up the licks from the Law & Order theme song.
And So It Goes could use some tightening and the lightness of the tone is sometimes alienating, but it succeeds much more than it fails at combining some of the more absurd and out-there elements of his early B-movie plays with the urban grit of his later work, set in Toronto's East End.
Post-show topics for discussion pile up. Why Vonnegut? Where is Gwen and Ned's cruelly absent son, and what does he symbolize? And whose jobs skills are more outdated - Gwen the Latin teacher, or Ned the financial adviser?
Walker's questions are, as always, more philosophical than political, and the answers are hidden far from sight in the dark corners and alleyways of the urban landscape.
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