by AMY BARRATT

It's unusual in my line of work to get to see a production more than once, no matter how much you would like to. Normally, I attend opening night and then move quickly on to the next thing. So I was pleased to have an opportunity to see Black Theatre Workshop's (BTW) Wade in the Water again, this time as part of the Centaur season.

Having heard that the last Centaur show, Tales From Ovid, which they picked up from the National Theatre School, was quite different in the remount, I wondered what they would do with Nova Scotian playwright George Boyd's poetic tale of a former slave.

When I saw the original production at the MAI in fall 2003, I liked the writing and the actors, Tyrone Benskin and Nigel Shawn Williams, very much. The play remains a fascinating portrait of a society - the American South at the moment of emancipation - in which old roles no longer apply but no one has had time to figure out what their new roles will be.

The play is directed by the multi-talented Richard Donat. Canada Reads fans will know him from his inspired reading of Rockbound on CBC radio this past winter.

I had some reservations about the original look of the production. If memory serves there have been some changes made, but not necessarily positive ones.

Katka Hubacek's set features amazingly realistic trees, withered by the blistering Georgia heat. Sitting in the audience, your eye travels admiringly over realistic ground cover, and is brought up short by a "bubbling" brook. The soundtrack gives us the sound of running water, but the brook is painted on the floor. This might not be so bad if Benskin didn't have to go over and "wash" himself in it.

This amateurish feature existed in the original production but was more forgivable because of BTW's limited financial resources. This time, it seems like yet another manifestation of Centaur's inexplicable hydrophobia. I was reminded of a scene in Vinci where a bucket of water was spilled, only there was no water in the bucket. Actors nevertheless busied themselves mopping it up.

I have nothing against stylized elements, but a show needs to be consistent. These contradictions in the set design are the equivalent of having realistic props half of the time with actors miming the rest, or having one actor meticulously dressed in period costume and the other in his street clothes. It just looks as though you've run out of time or money.

Perhaps this seems like dwelling too much on the superficial, but the design problems got in the way of my enjoyment of the play. Beautiful as those trees are, I would scrap them and do more with lighting to create a sense of place (and maybe even a running brook). Lighting designer Eric Mongerson's successful suggestion of a burning house is a tantalizing glimpse of what he might have been able to do if let loose.

On another topic: Yet another new company on the scene is Triptych Theatre, debuting with Harold Pinter's modern classic The Birthday Party. It's directed by Sid Zanforlin at the Théâtre Ste-Catherine, April 13–30, 273-8495.

Wade in the Water is at Centaur to May 15, Box Office 288-3161

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