Evoking a positive negative
NAC production is a beautiful and complicated piece of real art
Ecstasy of Rita Joe: Your irrational irritation is part of their art photo: courtesy of NAC English Theatre
George Ryga’s play The Ecstasy of Rita Joe is the story of Rita Joe and her boyfriend, Jaimie Paul, who come to the city from their First Nations community in search of a freer life, but are instead destroyed by white society. Sometimes political art is didactic, and characters simply stand in for power structures. It’s a form of greatness that this play transcends that, since complicating these issues it makes them more real.
No one seems to be wholly to blame or blameless here. Lisa Ravensberger’s tremendous, beautiful portrayal of Rita Joe is as a child: by turns exuberant or petulant, speaking with a lilting voice and mannerism that suggests silly adolescence. Sometimes you’re even left with a ghostly suggestion of dishonesty. Far from a simple victim of abuse, Ravensberger’s Rita Joe is actually somewhat unlikable.
It’s a brave choice by director Yvette Nolan, which, to me, shows an abused person who’s hollowed out by her experience: that along with her physical suffering comes a degradation of her character. She’s been marginalized and infantilized so long that those habits have taken root in her, and she becomes helpless and unable to rebuild herself.
The same can be said about the other performances in this extremely strong cast. Kevin Loring’s wonderful Jaimie Paul is a good man who stews in an anger that grows to consume his opportunity for a happy life. The figures of dominance aren’t overtly malicious in this play, but are weak (as Pierre Brault’s volatile Mr. Homer) or distressed at his role (as Layne Coleman’s delicate and affecting Magistrate).
At first I actually didn’t like this production. But my guest rightly pointed out that having no one to admire on the stage is part of the process, and that my irrational irritation is part of their art. As time passed I became more aware of this play’s powerful effect on me.
As appeared in the Ottawa XPress – May 07, 2009
http://www.ottawaxpress.ca/stage/stage.aspx?iIDArticle=17257
