by AMY BARRATT

Is it a play or is it a social studies class?

This is the dilemma the team at the Saidye needs to resolve with its production of Sunday Father by Adam Pettle. The title refers to the modern phenomenon of divorced fathers who get their children one day a week. The press kit is padded with resource material bearing titles like "Sibling Relationships in Divorced Families." How come, when the theatre did Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, they didn't provide handouts called "Alcoholism and marital breakdown"?

Sunday Father is either a work of art on its own merits or it isn't. It's billed as a comedy and that is, as Woody Allen would say, its best bet. Pettle's script has been given a lot of baggage to carry in this production.

The play focuses on two thirtysomething brothers, Alan (Kevin Kruchkywich) and Jed (Andrew Pifko), grown-up children of divorce. Jed, the younger brother, is a sports writer married to Amy (Suzanna Le Nir) and primary caregiver to four-year-old Daniel. Alan has gone into his father's law firm but dreams of making enough money to buy a minor league baseball team. He's one of those charming, funny Peter Pan types that everybody likes but nobody should get mixed up with romantically.

The play begins and is punctuated by excerpts from The Sunday Files, a recorded diary/radio show the young boys made on Sunday nights following visits with dad. The Sunday Files, by the way, would have been a more interesting title than Sunday Father.

At first, the story seems to be primarily about Jed and his domestic problems, but as a spectator I felt myself drawn more and more toward Alan. This is partly due to Kruchkywich's utterly appealing performance. It is also, I suspect, in the writing; I know very little about Adam Pettle, but if this piece is semi-autobiographical, I would wager that Alan is the "Adam character."

Both brothers are solidly written however, and Pettle has done a good job of showing us the effect their parents' breakup had on each of their personalities.

The role of Jed's wife is pretty thankless. This is not her story, it's theirs, and you almost wish Pettle had found a way to write it with just the two brothers on stage. This is not meant to diss Le Nir, who does as well as can be expected with what she's been given by the playwright. I also suspect that director Sean Sandler was too caught up in the brother relationship to give Le Nir much help.

Designer John Dinning's 22 years of experience designing for this theatre serve him well. He knows how to make use of the broad stage (rolling platform anyone?) while hemming it in so that the actors aren't lost.

The Saidye may be perfectly happy straddling the line between art and social studies. That's kind of the whole idea behind their immensely popular Sunday at the Saidye series. Usually scheduled just before a new play opens, these free, informal lectures explore themes relating to the play. For Sunday Father, they had Kevin and Trudie, the husband-and-wife team from CJAD's Matinée, addressing questions like "Are children of divorce more likely to have problems with relationships?" For Virginia Woolf they had Dr. Laurie Betito, also from the radio, talking about "Sustaining love, sex and intimacy ‘until death do us part'" and people lapped it up. So what do I know?

Sunday Father to May 9 at the Saidye (5170 Côte-Ste-Catherine), $16–$38, 739-7944

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