by AMY BARRATT

These days, there are two kinds of Canadians: those who are glued to the Gomery Commission hearings, and the somewhat larger group who couldn't tell the good Judge from star witness Jean Lafleur without a program. The former might want to check out Guy Sprung's Death and Taxes, now playing at the Saidye Bronfman Centre. And the latter should definitely give it a miss.

It's not that the play, co-produced by infinitheatre, is about the Commission, or the sponsorship scandal that gave rise to it. Sprung's modern history lesson (with audio-visual support) actually leaves off shortly before the 1995 Referendum, the "close call" that supposedly made the sponsorship program and its sloppy accounting necessary.

Death and Taxes is, believe it or not, a play about tax evasion, 1980s-style.

Is it possible to write a good play about tax evasion, you ask? Well, Sprung has called on every trick in the book to make it work, including multimedia elements, local references, an attempt to humanize his tax lawyer protagonist by giving him a troubled relationship with his father, and even a love story or two. None of it works, suggesting either that this is not a viable topic for drama or that it requires a better writer than Sprung.

At two hours and 45 minutes, Death and Taxes is nearly an hour too long. We're willing to cut Sprung some slack in the first act, as he sets up characters and relationships. Even there, though, he has included scenes of shameless exposition and eye-glazing high-finance talk. There are scenes in which even the actors don't seem to understand what they're talking about.

The production suffers from the twin afflictions of over-writing and under-rehearsal. Sprung's dialogue doesn't flow naturally, thus making it harder to learn, thus making the typical Saidye three-week rehearsal period impossibly short. It's dubious whether more time would have saved the production, but it might have allowed the actors to at least learn their lines. Eric Davis, as the anti-hero Nathan Carter, is floundering, not just for words but for character. A fine young local actor, he is a curious choice in this role, which requires him to play from late 20s to early 50s. It's easy to imagine Davis jumping at the chance to play against type as this sleazy, charismatic man, but he is not up to it, at least not with this text.

Another talented young actor, Karl Graboshas, is equally at sea as an RCMP officer who interviews Carter at several points about his possible knowledge of or involvement in government corruption during the Mulroney years. As Carter's wife, who gets into computer software on the ground floor and builds her own business, Leni Parker manages to smooth over some of the more awkward transitions. Anne Day-Jones fights valiantly to give flesh and blood to the character of the mistress, but she has some of the most unfortunate lines. There's a terrible meta-moment when Davis's character asks Day-Jones, who is an actress, whether she enjoys her poorly paid work. She says she does, "when the writing's good."

The cast is completed by Andreas Apergis, an actor whose charms have sometimes been lost on me in leading-man roles, but whose character acting here provides several bright spots in an otherwise rather grey evening. Even diehard political junkies may find Death and Taxes too much work for too little reward.

Death and Taxes is on until April 10 at the
Saidye, $18–$40, 739-7944

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