Theatre review: Palace of the End

MONTREAL ? Judith Thompson?s searing play Palace of the End has opened in Montreal, at Espace 4001, just in time for the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

After seeing the riveting Waterworks company production of the play last weekend, I found myself standing next to former Centaur artistic director Maurice Podbrey staring at the photos in the hallway. We asked each other the same questions: ?Who was that woman?? followed by ?Who are these people??

Neither of us knew Alexandra Valassis, who had just done a magnificent job of delivering the last of the three monologues in this searing work about war-torn Iraq. The name of the theatre company (Waterworks) did not ring a bell either. Nor did that of the director, Robert Langford. The other two performers (Sarah Marchand and Michael Findlay), who had just performed this demanding work, weren?t on the radar either. But together they had kept us enthralled.

The play itself was the main attraction, of course. Since Thompson got her start in the early 1980s at (Theatre Passe Murraille and Centaur Theatre), with her unsettling The Crackwalker, she has come up with a crackling canon that includes two Governor-General?s Award winning works, White Biting Dog (1984) and The Other Side of the Dark (1989) and two Chalmers Awards winners, I Am Yours (1987) and Lion in the Streets (1991).

Palace of the End (2008) is proof that Thompson hasn?t lost her edge. It?s a fiercely written, disturbing play based on real people that deals with the moral ambiguities of the war in a manner which defies simplistic ideological answers.

The first monologue, My Pyramids, was initially read at The Wrecking Ball cabaret in Toronto and was subsequently produced at the Traverse Theatre in Scotland in 2005. The other two were added later.

My Pyramids is told from the point of view of Lynndie England, the American soldier convicted of torturing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Since England, who posed with naked prisoners piled into a pyramid, was such an unsympathetic person, Thompson has her character, called Soldier, begin by reading some of the disgusting hate mail she has received since her trial. This sets us on the listening path. Marchand does the rest, introducing us to a young woman who seems terminally naive, deluded and vain ? as well as unspeakably cruel.

Her story is long and convoluted, often aimed directly at the audience, and the details are stomach-turning.

When Findlay takes over, after Marchand?s crazed intensity, he?s so low-key it almost seems like intermission. As British biologist and weapons inspector David Kelly, who apparently committed suicide in 2003 after confessing to misinforming the world about weapons of mass destruction, he pauses frequently, measuring his words.

Then Valassis makes her move, as Nehrjas Al Saffarh, a communist-affiliated activist and teacher who was tortured and raped by Saddam Hussein?s thugs (known as the Jihaz Haneen) in 1963. She begins as a gracious hostess chatting over tea, then gradually leads us into the palace that Hussein had transformed into a multi-level dungeon of bloody interrogations. But she lets it be known that she has her issues with the Americans, too. After all, one of their bombs killed her during the first Persian Gulf War. Although the radical shift backward in time is a bit confusing at first, it does widen the historical context. And Valassis gives a powerful performance so firmly anchored in a deep sense of emotional truth that it removes the option of indifference.

Director Langford, a Concordia BFA graduate who works as a software analyst, said the $6,500 budget for Palace of the End came out of his own salary.

Later, I realized that I had seen Valassis perform once before, in an Altera Vitae production of Marsha Norman?s ?Night Mother, five years ago. But really this production has landed pretty much out of the blue, like a meteorite carrying a revelation. Don?t miss it.

Palace of the End, by Judith Thompson, continues Thursday through Sunday at Espace 4001, at 4001 Berri St. Tickets $15. Visit waterworksmontreal.wordpress.com

pdonnell@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: @patstagepage

Source: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/theatre/Theatre+review+Palace/8121756/story.html

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