Combining physics, grief proves qualified success
By Cam Fuller
Star Phoenix, Oct. 3, 2000
Physics meets grief in Jennifer Webber's play Beside Myself, which opened on the weekend at Dancing Sky Theatre in Meacham.
The unusual combination of science and emotion makes this play truly unique. Louisa Ferguson stars as Hally, a young physicist who abandons her life in Saskatoon to live on a sailboat in a Vancouver marina. After the death of her carpenter husband she's no longer interested in living on solid ground.
"I jump, I land, I saw the boat," Ferguson/Hally says with giddy glee.
The motion makes her feel less passive, less like a victim - she can make something change.
Ferguson's impassioned acting and Angus Ferguson's direction made it clear early that Hally's elation is hollow. She's wounded and barely hanging on. The spirit of her husband Wade (Brad Loucks) is there to see it all, showing strong disapproval when the topic turns to suicide.
A lot is made in the early going of Hally's callous in-laws, none of which works dramatically. It's hard to share Hally's enmity when we don't know the people she's railing against. This is the least enjoyable aspect of the play.
Webber brings the notion of physics into the story carefully and gradually, taking care not to lose the audience in the theorizing. At the same time, she doesn't flinch from getting deep into the topic of things like quantum wave functions, the idea that the simple act of observing something changes that which is observed and the notion of multiple realities co-existing.
In the end, it's a qualified success. The details were tough to absorb but when the theories were put to the test, you finally knew what the writer was getting at. A lot depends on the ability of the male actor to play several roles. Loucks was excellent, especially when called on to portray a little girl. Webber's writing - the way Hannah makes stream-of-consciousness pronouncements - was keenly observed as well.
The set is surprising. Rather than showing an entire boat, the Fergusons have separated the vessel into three pieces, which is a clever way to vary the blocking and, perhaps, to make a statement about Hally's state of mind.