Review - Carnival Round The Central Figure

The central figure of Diana Amsterdam's tragedy of manners is a young, terminally ill accountant named Paul (Ted Caine) who spends most of the evening silently lying in a hospital bed surrounded by a carnival of denial. Unable to communicate, it's unclear how much of his wife, Sheila's (Christine Rowan), mask of perkiness he must endure as she forces positive energy into the room with plans for their future and uses an annoyingly motherly tone to praise the fact that he ate a whole half a banana today and kept it all down.

Her antics are all rather distasteful to Paul's co-worker Kate (Danni Simon) who comes for a visit and, sounding like the voice of the playwright, insists that Sheila but blunt with Paul about the fact that he is dying.

Their scenes in Carnival Round The Central Figure alternate with snippets from a televised gospel program, Speak Straight to Jesus, that features a fanatically energetic evangelist (Shane LeCocq), backed up by a frenzied choir, reminding us that death is simply the passing from this world into the next.

While Amsterdam offers a promising set-up, the playwright never goes much beyond stating the fact that people generally don't like to talk openly about death. At times she even appears critical of faiths that comfort their followers with the promise of an afterlife.

But while the text is too simple and repetitive, director Karen Kohlhaas' production for IRT keeps the evening visually interesting. The modest space is decorated with posters depicting a Mardi Gras skull and strings of light from above suggest we're seated under a carnival tent with an imposing nurse, who occasionally sucks blood out of Paul with an enormous syringe, seated throne-like on a raised platform, observing actors who perform ritualistically in whiteface. The company dives into the material admirably but there just isn't enough there.

Photo Danni Simmons and Ted Caine by Deneka Peniston.

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