I wish I had something more interesting to write about.
There are positive things to say about this production, but let’s start with the script, which is a meaningless puzzle.
In Calgary playwright Arun Lakra’s Heist, an Irishman named Marvin recruits a team of criminals to pull off the theft of a gigantic ruby, which is, for some reason, on display in an art gallery. The play is a theatrical ode to heist movies, but the “iconic” roles that Lakra assigns to Marvin’s gang — the Popeye is the muscle, the Mary-Lou the apparent innocent, the Gilligan the passionate screw-up, and so on — are the playwright’s invention.
Act 1 is all about the introduction of these characters and the execution of the theft. There’s some eccentric charm in the writing and, as we’ll get to in a minute, plenty of theatricality in the storytelling, so I was reasonably engaged. But, when the script launched into a second heist at the end of the first act, I could feel that engagement tipping perilously on the edge of a cliff.
In Act 2, it slid. That’s because Heist is all about a betrayal. In the first job, it seems, somebody in the gang betrayed the rest. The second job is designed to reveal who that was. But, for that betrayal to be meaningful, we’d have to have some investment in the characters and their relationships, and the playwright has failed to include any significant reason for us to care about any of them. Sure, Marvin’s father, who was also a thief, went to prison, leaving Marvin and his mom impoverished. But even that gets only a perfunctory mention. So, as I watched the mechanics of another job unfold — they’re after a diamond this time — I could barely muster a ho hum. The structure, which flips back and forth in time, gets more complicated, resetting perceptions in a sequence that turns into a kind of hall of mirrors. There’s skill in this, but none of it matters. If money is all that’s at stake and the characters are two-dimensional, who cares?
But, as I said, the production is much better than the script.
The projection designs by Wladimiro A. Woyno Rodriguez are a stylish wonder. They open the show with a movie-like credit sequence in which angular animated characters slink stealthily through a richly coloured urban world. And, in the body of the show, in some of those time flips, an outline of the set, more or less its blueprint, is projected onto the set, and then distorts as time becomes liquid.
Other elements of the production are also stylish: Ryan Cormack’s set, Malcolm Dow’s music and sound, Barbara Clayden’s costumes, and Sophie Tang’s lighting.
The acting is mostly solid. In Act 2, Patti Allan brings the requisite level of threat to a character called The Spider, a vicious criminal who’s the owner of the diamond. Charlie Gallant makes Marvin, the ringleader, as sympathetic as the script allows him to be. My one notable disappointment was Alexandra Lainfiesta’s performance as Angie, the cat-burglar on the team, and a manipulative seductress. All I got from Lainfiesta was a series of poses — but this script might not allow room for much more.
If you think about the plot, there are holes in it, and, in terms of thinking — or feeling — plot is all that’s on the table. So why bother?
Heist by Arun Lakra. Directed by Andrew Kushnir. An Arts Club Theatre production at the Stanley Theatre until October 18. Tickets and information.
PHOTO CREDIT: (Photo of Andrew McNee and Patti Allan by Moonrider Productions. Costumes by Barbara Clayden. Lighting by Sophie Tang.)
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