Tales From the Hospital
Nordic Stage Theatre
4 1/2 Stars
Tales From the Hospital, written by Trevor Schmidt, returns to Edmonton after its 1998 debut. It features four individual monologues by two employees and two patients in a long-term care mental institution.
Set in the 1960s, the stories have a resemblance to real life stories of medical experiments and sterilizations that were practiced on unfortunate individuals in Alberta hospitals before the medical operations were banned in 1973.
The monologues are dark and will destabilize the viewers’ inner core. In the first monologue, a young woman patient (Janelle Jorde) with cognitive disabilities, yearns to have a baby – someone to love and replace the family who abandoned her. Unfortunately, she’s been sterilized, and the dream will never come true.
In the second monologue, nurse Blanche Mains (Linda Grass), a caregiver known to mete out vicious treatment to patients, tries to justify herself after deliberately drowning an old man. The third monologue follows Irene (Elizabeth Allison-Jorde), a nurse who witnessed the murder and did nothing. She has been banished to the laundry room at the lowest levels of the hospital where she can no longer have one-on-one contact with patients.
The fourth woman (Sophie May Healey) is locked in a room and wrapped in a white sheet that suggests a strait-jacket. Her religious fervour and beautiful facial expression are emphasized in messianic rantings. She spouts a stream of religious thoughts, but hiding underneath are implications of society’s broken moral compass.
The foursome’s acting is brilliant and shocking. By the last narration, we see them all trapped as either torturer or victim. What is most disconcerting is the realization so-called civilized individuals in power advocated and permitted the abuse of human beings.
– Anna Borowiecki
