Yeats in love

>> Daniel Giverin's The Two Trees portrays the poet's obsessive love

by AMY BARRATT

In this age of theatre-as-spectacle, a critic occasionally pines for a really beautifully written script. My fellow critics and I were hard-pressed to come up with a list of contenders for Best New Play when giving out the MECCAs earlier this fall. So there's something very refreshing about a play that not only gives primacy to the word, but also takes its inspiration from the world of literature. Daniel Giverin's The Two Trees, now playing at infinitheatre, is such a play.

The one-man vehicle, which Giverin also stars in, is based on the 50-year romance between Irish poet/playwright W.B. Yeats and the nationalist revolutionary Maud Gonne.

Yeats is known to have been what we, in a less romantic age, would call "obsessed" with Gonne from their first meeting. The extent to which she returned his feelings is up for debate. In The Two Trees, Yeats proposes marriage to her several times and each time is turned down; soon after one of these refusals, he learns that she has married someone else. (This was one of the moments when the small crowd at infinitheatre was right with Giverin, groaning in sympathy with the heartbroken poet.) Giverin has his own theories about the nature of the relationship and brilliantly uses excerpts from Yeats' writings to support them.

The production is by necessity very simple, but the lighting and design elements by Robin A. Paterson and soundscape by Michael Picton are effective. Giverin's resonant voice and Irish lilt are easy to listen to.

The Two Trees is a play I would like to see again and that is either a compliment or a criticism depending on how you look at it. I feel that I missed things on a first viewing. Perhaps it was all there and I just wasn't listening hard enough, but I suspect that if my mind wandered it was because the actor's focus wandered. Giverin, along with co-directors Paterson and Brett Watson, need more time to work on the minutiae of the performance until every moment works as well as a few of them already do.

Betrayed and clueless

English theatre is busting out all over. Centaur's recently opened Driving Miss Daisy has a strong trio of actors in Carolyn Hetherington, Ardon Bess and Mo Bock. That's on until Dec. 3.

Opening tonight at the Saidye is the Soulpepper production of Pinter's Betrayal. These are the folks who presented a much-praised and also somewhat reviled version of A Streetcar Named Desire last year. It's directed by Daniel Brooks, a big shot in the Toronto theatre scene. The last work of his I saw was Insomnia, which he co-wrote and co-directed at last year's Festival de Théâtre des Amériques. Although I despised the play itself, it was a good-looking production and well acted. With Betrayal, Brooks has top-notch material to work with and the production was well received in Toronto in September. Richard Ouzounian of the Toronto Star wrote that "the only problem in discussing Soulpepper Theatre Company's latest production is wondering what to praise first." To Nov. 26 at the Saidye.

If you're looking for a laugh and a good time, you can't go wrong with MaskOn! Their latest original show, Clueless, just got underway at Théâtre Prospero. It's about a friendly game of Twister gone horribly, homicidally wrong. Wednesdays through Sundays at 8:15 p.m. until Nov. 11.

The Two Trees at infinitheatre, Wed-Sun through to Nov. 12, $5 for members, $10 non-members (includes membership); info at 987-1774