I’m a 74-year-old gay man, so many of the terms of Peter Zednik’s new play Sandsprite are familiar to me.
Sandsprite is about the potential rekindling of a romance between two old gay men. Although they were lovers in small-town Ontario when they were 16, Si has spent the last 48 years in a straight marriage, while Brogan made a break for the big city, where he enthusiastically embraced gay promiscuity.
My basic take is that Act 2 of Sandsprite is much more successful than Act 1.
Off the top, a first-year university student named Campbell shows up at Brogan’s bedsit. Brogan sells “memorabilia” online and Campbell hopes to find some dishes and so on to set himself up. Campbell’s granddad, who’s in town to help his grandson get settled, grows tired of waiting outside in his car. When he knocks on Brogan’s door, Brogan immediately recognizes him as Si. It only takes a minute for Si to catch up.
Following this set-up, Act 1 circles relentlessly, which is a big problem.
At first, Brogan demands that Si admit they were once in love and Si insists, “You were my friend.” This goes on for a while, then they have sex, and the tables turn: Si declares his desire to move in with Brogan and reinvent his life, but Brogan rejects Si’s proposal, arguing that they don’t really know each other anymore. So Act 1 circles in one direction, then it turns around and circles in the other. Just before intermission, this stasis is suddenly broken by a melodramatic gesture that seems unlikely (and irresponsible) in terms of character, but welcome in that something is finally happening.
One more significant complaint before I get to the positive stuff: Brogan is a non-stop camp quipster and that gets tired very quickly. Sometimes, Brogan is genuinely witty but more often he’s not: “If I’d known this was a formal occasion, I wouldn’t dusted off my tiara.” I understand that Brogan’s camp performance is a form of self-defence but, to me at least, it’s also unattractively immature, and my take is that playwright Zednik’s focus on Brogan’s jokiness is one of the things that keeps Act 1 stuck in superficiality: there’s not a lot of room left for character development or narrative advancement.
But, as I said, Act 2 gets better. Brogan has a monologue in which he addresses the difficulties of his life as an out gay man: his realistic fear of being arrested as a teenager, his terror during the worst of the Aids years. Allan Morgan, who is playing Brogan, is openhearted and understated in his delivery, which makes this monologue moving. Morgan knows what he’s doing throughout the show, as do the other two actors.
Zednik also gives Si a monologue in which he tells Brogan about the realities of life with his wife Carol Anne. This material is less familiar, so it’s more surprising and actor Adam Henderson’s delivery is skilfully skinless.
Interestingly, skill — at least the apparent application of skill — isn’t a concept that seems applicable to Alek Toledo-Cisak’s performance as Campbell, and I mean that positively Toledo-Cisak simply seems to be Campbell, there’s no discernible deliberateness about it. I experienced Toledo-Cisak’s performance as a clear pane of glass, in contrast to Morgan and Henderson’s rich stained-glass panes, and I found it refreshing.
Act 2 concludes with a huge revelation that requires a complete reassessment of everything we thought we knew. It’s melodramatic, but the complexities of the rethinking are worth it.
A couple of thoughts about the lighting. Designer Harika Xu responds to a dramatic moment by giving the lamps on the set a sudden pulse. It’s an effective expressionistic cue. In a less successful cue, Xu bathes the front rows of the audience in harsh “daylight” when the sun comes up on the set: the shared illumination is distracting and imposes an unwelcome element of alienation.
For me, Sandsprite is a mixed bag, especially given the long wait for Act 2.
SANDSPRITE by Peter Zednik. Directed by Chris Lam. A Western Gold Theatre production at the PAL Studio Theatre until November 29. Tickets and information.
PHOTO CREDIT: (This photo of Adam Henderson and Allan Morgan is by Javier Sotres. Set: Glenn MacDonald. Costumes: Barbara Clayden. Lighting: Harika Xu.)
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