People, Places and Things: made up but it's truthful
17 Feb 2025 - Photos by Elena Emer

People, Places and Things begins with an actress having a breakdown mid-Chekhov, earns a delicious slow-burn laugh as we realize Ibsen is being bastardized, praises the poetic grace of Shakespeare, but most closely resembles The Snake Pit. Yes, we are in meta-theatre mode and some of it is quite articulately done as an actress, Emma, struggles in and out of recovery. Though the roots of her addiction are elucidated as the play progresses, she also is using acting as a drug, confessing, "With a play you get instructions . . . all the boring stuff cut out . . . you get to say things that are truthful even if they're made up." That real life cannot compare to theatre is a given, but playwright Duncan Macmillan posits that theatre is also a gateway drug. Macmillan peppers the text with one-liners but the end result is, like any addiction narrative, grim. Director Diana Bentley (Hedda Gabler, Yerma, Knives in Hens, Category E) injects, no pun intended, frenetic energy and skilful staging to combat the 'this is your mind on drugs' passages, with the confusing result of making us realize that theatre, and possibly drugs and alcohol, are more fun than real life.

The Coal Mine has pulled out all the stops with an ingenious set by Steve Lucas that, with a central raised platform and seats all around, mimics the arrangement of the group therapy sessions that become a central part of the narrative. The huge cast—at times it seemed there were more people on the stage and racing through the aisles, than there were audience members in attendance—work hard playing both characters and illustrations of the protagonist's state of mind. Nickeshia Garrick (Obeah Opera), Sam Grist, Sarah Murphy-Dyson, Kwaku Okyere (Roberto Zucco, Choir Boy, Iphigenia and the Furies, Shove It Down My Throat, The Seat Next to the King) and Kaleb Tekeste, are required to instantly etch defined fellow patients which they do unerringly. They are also required to populate dance numbers, the pounding electronics courtesy of Thomas Ryder Payne, which range from ecstatic to an attempt to visualize the horrors of withdrawal. The former are much needed, the latter initially shock before left-turning into modern dance camp.

Oliver Dennis (King Lear, Queen Goneril, A Streetcar Named Desire, Rose, La Bete, Animal Farm) has several startling entrances and adds an intriguing, but not explored, addition to the theme positing religion as another addiction. Matthew Gouveia is deliciously dry as an intake worker and a tragic catalyst. Farhang Ghajar (Mad Madge) excels as a reluctant love interest and a pragmatist to counter Emma's struggles and flights of fancy. Fiona Reid (The Bidding War, Hedda Gabler, The Audience, London Road) is saddled with a lot of exposition and medical addiction talk, which she gracefully handles with brittle wit and just enough shadings of warmth. She also threads her multiple characters with finesse to build to a final act character who is morally ambiguous while also an archetype built of the previous characters. At the center of it all is Louise Lambert (Yerma) as Emma. It is a great role for an actress as, while it doesn't have a conventional character arc, Lambert gets to play sarcastic, funny, desperate, in agony, all while being incredibly articulate. 

Because she is an actress, Emma shapeshifts into various roles, trying to get what she thinks she wants. It is a very potent and accurate metaphor for an addict. Lambert can charm, wheedle, argue and fight, but with the character so shielded, shedding layers for layers in an attempt to find a core self, we aren't let in and are left to watch her writhe and struggle. Instead of being seated in the group therapy sessions, we are left to observe from a slight, safe, remove, only clutching at bits of identification that hit personally. I really wanted to root for Emma, and for Lambert, but the grim realities of addiction wore me down and instead of catharsis, the end result was numbing. However People, Places and Things—and yes the title refers to one of the more depressing and insurmountable mottos of AA's Big Book—is tragically accurate. When one of Reid's doctor characters warns that "Your addiction is a parasite. It will fight for its survival until you are dead," it is heartbreakingly realistic. The line may be made up but it is truthful.