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December 9 1998

 

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Volume 23 © Issue 12

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CHRIS MORRIS

 

orth Shore Fish by Israel Horovitz is a play
about a small town with a factory and how
the town either thrives or dies because of
it. Set in the mid-eighties, the play focuses
on the people working in the factory and
their relationships.
The characters Flo, Sal, Porker, Josie,
Maureen, Arlyne and Ruthie all have histo-
ries with each co
other, and a
those histories
come out
through dia-
logue (with the

 
   
 
  
  
 
  
  
  
   
 
  
  
    
   
 
  

“new” charac-
ters Marlena Js wered by
and Catherine
Shima) or
through their
actions. The
main charac-
ters, Flo
(Shannon
Strumecki), Sal
(Preston
Cook) and
Porker (Sean
Carey) all per-
formed won-

derfully and

were superbly

 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

cast. Porker in
particular, as
the actor's face

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bp \ Douglas College

 

    

motherly Arlyne (Susan Duclos) to the
naive Maureen (Samantha Fletcher), all the
performances were well done.

The character of Marlena (Rebekah
Gusway), however, needed better dialogue.
Such an important character needed more
to say. For example, when Ruthie
(Christina Forbes) insists that her newborn
baby will never “be back” to North Shore Fish
— so much was
said, while not
being said, about
Ruthie’s true feel-
ings with that line.

The character of
inspector Catherine
Shima (Becky
Boychuk), was
played in a refresh-
ing manner, as she
wasnt shown as
“evil”; she was just
doing her job and
Xe it was apparent
. oY that, under differ-
ent circumstances,
these people could
have all become
friends.

The writer,
Israel Horovitz,
does a great job
handling all the
various relation-
ships that are
explored in the

 

 

seemed like it
would be Porker’s face if he actually exist-
ed. The accents were done well and this
added to the atmosphere. Flo especially
executed this well, and her sassy-yet-tender

   
  
   
 
   
    
  
  
 

performance was the heart of the piece.
All of the supporting cast performed
well, in particular Josie, played by Jennifer
Barclay, as she provided an energy sorely
needed for this material. She was comfort-
able on stage, not afraid to roam around
beyond her designated “space,” while some
others in the cast seemed to have their feet
glued to the floor at times. The role of the
supporting cast was to proceed the plot
along and help the audience in understand-
ing and figuring out all the subplots. And
they did their jobs very well. From the

 

text. He does his audience a great service
by acknowledging that they are intelligent.
He accomplishes this by having the charac-
ters say things seemingly out of character
for the people we've been introduced to,
only they wouldn't be out of character to
the person they are talking to, These char-
acters have watched each other grow up and
go through all sorts of changes.

In the end, Sal, who up to that point
had been a total jerk to Porker, appeals to
Porker's sense of their friendship. The audi-
ence has only been shown that they hate
each other, but the writer knew that the

 

CHRIS MorRRIS

 

Noncommittal Noise was an ambitious project
and the cast and crew should be applauded
for their efforts. The director, David
Bloom, and the cast wrote the script
themselves and worked under tense
conditions with limited time. It should be
said that it wouldnt be right, or fair, to
judge this play in the same manner as North
Shore Fish, a script that has been around and

{probably had been workshopped to death

 

 

set, used in between scene breaks to set the
“mood,” was a great device. Usage of
movie clips and music videos (especially
Pearl Jam's ‘Evolution’) was well done, but
there were times when it didn't work, At
certain points, the video would stop and
freeze while the scene continued on. |
found out later it was to allow for timing
discrepancies from night-to-night, but at
the time, I got the sense that someone had
screwed up.

The second act didnt live up to the first
and was a bit of a let-
down. It didn’t seem like
it was going anywhere,
even up to the conclu-
sion. The scenes kept
coming, but nothing
seemed connected.
Couples got together
seemingly so those actors
would have something to
talk about in the follow-
ing scenes. he problem
with the actors them-
selves writing the script
was that it seemed like no
one wanted to step on
anyone's toes, so to speak,
and that everyone felt
each character should get
at least one “explosive”
scene. The problem with
that is that no one char-
acter could be focused on

 

 

before it ever came here. But still, let’s

proceed.

Noncommittal Noise started off very well
with a wonderful first act. A menagerie of
plotlines and snappy dialogue rushed out
from the first scene straight through until
intermission. The characters were intro-
duced through actions and dialogue, not
exposition. The stage crew did a great job
creating all-important atmosphere and
three separate yet distinct settings; an
apartment, a bar and a video store. A
bunch of television sets hovering over the

 

 

 

Continued Page 18...

 

 

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to any extent, as time had
to be spent talking about someone else. |
applaud the effort to make each character
textured, and | do realize that it is an act-
ing class and the point is for everyone to
get the opportunity to learn, but at that
same time, it just didnt work and the play
itself seemed overloaded.

There were also some scenes that
seemed out of place. The use of the “n”
word didnt fit at all in the play and the
ensuing argument seemed forced. Racism
hadnt been touched on at all previously in
the play, and suddenly there it was,
Subjects this intense and controversial (like
rape, abortion, and homosexuality) should-
nt just be “glazed over,” used as a plot
point or an excuse for an argument. But