Chris George, Liliona Quarmyne, & Amy Reitsma. Photo by James MacLean.
Dan Bray’s new play Deepwater opened tonight at The Bus Stop Theatre and it feels like a twisty, turny voyage beneath the surface and into unknown territories where things morph from seemingly harmless to quite terrifying, sometimes within milliseconds, the deeper down you go. It is difficult to talk at all about this play without feeling like I might be spoiling some elements, so I am going to cast a spoiler alert net around this entire review just in case. Deepwater plays at The Bus Stop Theatre until March 17th, 2024.
Deepwater tells the story of May, played by Amy Reitsma, an incredibly smart marine biologist who has a complicated relationship with her mother, a passionate love affair with her work and research, an initially sweet romance with her partner Casper, played by Chris George, and who then finds herself pregnant and moving across the world from her work to focus instead on raising her child and taking care of her mother in her childhood home. When her daughter, Lucy, goes missing six years later it’s up to RCMP Inspector Questa, played by Liliona Quarmyne to solve the mystery of what happened to her.
There is a lot in this play that I really liked and that I think works really well. I really like the overall conceit of the play, which I won’t spoil because I feel like aspects of it come as a genuine surprise to the audience. The academic elements of the dialogue really come alive and show us the best sides of both Casper and May in a beautiful way, and also illustrate so clearly why these two people fell in love with one another in the first place. I loved how much of Bray’s own humour is in Casper (especially at the beginning of the play), and how Bray gets to do a bit of self-deprecating humour in writing the way that May sometimes responds to his dad jokes. Questa oscillates nicely between seeming like she is the cop firmly in charge of this entire situation, but also opening up to May in ways that seem conceivable as interrogation or investigative tactics. Even having spoken to Dan Bray and director Burgandy Code prior to seeing the play, I was often surprised by the direction the action was taking and that felt very fresh and different and unique. The way that the deep sea imagery is intrinsically woven into the story does really offer a deeper layer to May’s psyche and the way that she is seeing the world at different times in her life.
Burgandy Code has the audience arranged in a horseshoe on the edges of the Bus Stop Theatre, and she has the actors playing in the middle of the horseshoe, at the top of it (the most conventional of the three), and outside of it, so sometimes the actors are standing directly behind you and you have to decide whether you want to turn around and stare directly at them- or whether you would rather focus on watching the actors who are reacting to the person talking who are easier for you to see instead. Similarly, there are times when, momentarily, some actors have their backs to you, so Code is limiting how we are able to process all the information in the play. If I cannot see May’s face, I cannot read her expressions, so I may be at the mercy of seeing how Questa responds to her to get an accurate sense of how I interpret May’s words. Within the context of a murder mystery this is fascinating because no one in the audience, then, has all the clues.
I was infuriated by Casper, ardently so, through most of the play, which proves that Chris George has done a very effective job bringing this character to life. He is someone who really has two very different sides to him, which I found even more frustrating, and George did a beautiful job of inhabiting both of these dichotomies without coming across like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Amy Reitsma’s May is similar, but more nuanced, and Reitsma also does a very clear job of playing a wide range of deep, and sometimes kind of chaotic, emotions, and sometimes having to switch on an absolute dime as the play bounces around in time and space. Liliona Quarmyne’s Questa feels (mostly) very grounded and natural, which I think really serves the play as a whole. The projections by Mackenzie Cornfield are very effective and really give a vivid sense of being under the water in the ocean- whether that was literal for May, or psychological.
I wasn’t confused by the arc of the story. But, I did have some thoughts and questions. In light of the ending, I was curious about what Questa’s relationship was to May and the case of her missing daughter, Lucy, before the play starts. For me, Questa became the audience’s proxy onstage, which I think makes the payoff for the ending powerful, but, as my proxy there were some times where I wanted Questa to call May and Casper out more when their answers seemed weird- when they didn’t seem to be behaving in ways we expect parents in this situation (or at all) should behave. I wanted Questa to acknowledge this discrepancy for me more often. I also found Lucy was a bit intangible, and wondered if there might be a few more ways to make her come alive more as an individual for the audience to really care about her, and whether, perhaps, that might also be through Questa.
I was bracing myself for being a little frustrated after having been led through a mystery for 85 minutes and then not getting a definitive resolution, but the ending instead really does sort of force the audience to connect the dots and create a kind of resolution for themselves. There is no one answer, but in this case that seems more freeing than vexing, and as Burgandy Code mentioned in our conversation last week about no one person in the rehearsal hall owning any one part of the finished play, I also don’t feel like I own the definitive interpretation. I would be curious to talk to others about what they thought about the ending and what they think it all means. I think Deepwater will inspire many conversations among friends in the lobby after the show.
The Villains Theatre’s production of Deepwater runs at the Bus Stop Theatre (2203 Gottingen Street, Halifax) March 13th to 17th, 2023. Many shows are already sold out but there is availability Saturday March 16th at 2:00pm, and Sunday, March 17th at 2:00pm and 7:30pm. Tickets are PWYC and available at this website. There is also a streamed performance on Sunday March 17th at 7:30pm. Free child-care is available for all performances. Click here to sign up or email info@villainstheatre.com for more info.
Content warning: This production is recommended for ages 14+. It contains subject matter including death, illness, missing children, and abuse. A vape (with unscented water vapour), Fast moving Projections, Patterned holes in set design, and UV Light. A full content warning list is available here.
Note: This production takes place at 2203 Gottingen Street and is wheelchair accessible with gender-neutral washrooms. For access notes for the venue please click here. The audience seating is in a semi-circle on the floor in one row – if you need a seat near the exit for accessibility purposes please email us at info@villainstheatre.com and we will reserve one for you!
