REVIEW
Terry and The Dog
Edmonton Actors Theatre
Runs until May 19
ATB Financial Arts Barns Studio
10330 – 84 Ave.
Tickets: $15 to $20. Call 780-420-1757 or www.tixonthesquare.ca
It’s quite dark on entering the Arts Barns Studio for the world premiere of Edmonton playwright Collin Doyle’s Terry and The Dog. Immediately you sense the sweet perfume of freshly cut wood.
Slats of wood hang suspended from the ceiling and line the back wall. They represent a house, a fence or whatever works in the moment.
A stark blue light shines on a triple-tiered wooden deck. It highlights a grizzled figure sitting alone, a six-pack beside his garden chair.
The pot-bellied man gazes silently into the distance ruminating over his alcohol-fuelled dreams and nightmares, memories and regrets.
In speaking to the audience, Terry Mire’s opening line is, “I’m trying to find meaning here.”
That one sentence is Terry’s reason for living, and I suspect also the playwright’s. Doyle’s father was an alcoholic who achieved sobriety, yet scarred his family during the addicted years.
Doyle’s previous two works with alcoholic fathers, The Mighty Carlins and Routes, create dark patriarchal characters. Terry and The Dog, instead explores a sober man atoning to his wife for past mistakes, making peace with his son, and taking responsibility for Buddy, an abandoned dog.
Although only 75 minutes in length, this lush one-act is packed with a lifetime of material written in short scenes that weave into each other seamlessly and quickly. It is not a play that dwells too long on any emotion or mood.
Edmonton Actors Theatre artistic director Dave Horak expertly navigates the actors through the plot’s intricate and emotionally charged twists and turns.
But the real applause goes to Robert Benz who plays Terry, a man who fights every day to stay sober and regrets the pain he’s caused his wife, Diane, and son, Ken.
From the get-go, Benz is a charming, consummate storyteller who holds us in the palm of his hand. Alcoholism is an ugly disease, yet Benz’s portrayal takes you beyond the slurring surface to a man who admits he is powerless over alcohol and has made a decision to turn his life around.
Yet without the support of his wife, Diane, a woman who refuses to take crap, yet still loves him intensely, Terry would probably have failed.
Maralyn Ryan plays the no-nonsense Diane with a surprising softness encasing a steely spine. This is a woman who will do whatever it takes to protect her family.
Diane encourages Terry to get a dog and through Buddy miracles happen. Diane and Terry develop a closer bond. When Diane develops terminal cancer, Terry is there every step of the way.
Although Ryan uses her finely honed comedic chops to add levity, it is Diane’s tragic death scene that is so gripping and poignant.
But it is through actor Cole Humeny's Ken, a fourth-generation alcoholic, that we feel the true emotional pain of alcoholism. During a father-son screaming match, Ken recalls one of his first childhood memories of alcohol induced violence.
“You clipped her (Diane) in the jaw and she fell back in the snow,” Ken shouts leaving the audience frozen in shock.
Humeny portrays a sensitive individual who has a wife and children, yet believes he is repeating his father's life and can only deal with it in one way – suicide. Ken stops the cycle, but the cost is so great.
Terry and The Dog's intensity wrings emotions from both actors and audience. Yet it is packed full of life and reminds us that miracles do happen.
Terry and The Dog runs until May 19.
