Review: LESSON IN FORGETTING from Pleiades Theatre Makes Much of Memory

What are the essential qualities that make people who they are? What are the ties that bind us together, emotionally and physically? Is memory crucial to continuing a relationship, or does love conquer all? These are some of the questions asked in LESSON IN FORGETTING, Emma Haché's heart-wrenching play that is getting its English-language premiere from Pleiades Theatre at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts.

Some time ago, HE (Andrew Moodie) was in a car accident that caused a traumatic brain injury. Currently in an assisted living facility, HE remains in a sort of stasis, unable to remember anything past a few minutes, besides his love for his wife, who visits him daily. SHE (Ma-Anne Dionisio) is on a long emotional journey of trying to reconcile her sense of responsibility to her husband with her own frustrated needs and desires, aware that he remembers her but not her visits, and would not know if she never returned.

Haché has taken on the difficult task of creating a story that both cannot and must move forward at the same time, one that emphasizes repetition without a resulting loss of interest from the viewer. She largely succeeds. The complex script is assisted by a fluid translation by Taliesin McEnaney with John Van Burek, which is lyrical and compelling.

What makes LESSON IN FORGETTING especially fascinating is that it's not a simple story of one woman's martyrdom and devotion, but a more nuanced one of codependence and the multilayered emotions of caretaking. In many ways, SHE needs him as much as HE needs her - perhaps even more. Some sparing moments of humour, along with Moodie's charisma and the genuine love and courtly playfulness he shows with his wife, make the audience understand why it is so difficult for her to disconnect.

The range shown by the actors is impressive, as the emotional landscape shifts quickly and constantly, with sharp, ever-present moments of pain. SHE has the questionable advantage of a longer memory; she's able to rage at her husband when the mood strikes, knowing his mind will forget what she has said. Unfortunately, hers will not, and guilt has a long shelf life. HE, not quite a blank slate, is assisted by monologues where he shows some awareness of what is happening to him, describing his experience in bleak detail as "where nothing descends in intervals of grey."

Moodie does a fantastic job of portraying a man with only one thread tying him to a consistent understanding of his world. His constant question of what happened to him could get tedious or even comical, but he manages to keep it fresh each time, as though he is truly discovering the words as he says them. Dionisio, with a flashier part, storms through the piece with the grace and dignity of a tragic heroine.

While the show is at its heart a two-hander, Reese Cowley ably and gracefully fills a third position as figures from past, present, and imagined reality, showing the malleability of memory even to a healthy mind as she is positioned by the narrative.

Similarly malleable, the set (Jackie Chau) has a simple, dreamlike quality, primarily consisting of spare blocks which take on whichever role is needed, and suspended panels upon which natural and abstracted projections (Denyse Karn) dance. A white slab, for example, functions equally as hospital bed or grave, as HE speaks of his condition as "like being dead."

Not everything about LESSON IN FORGETTING completely works. The emotions are so heightened through the entire show that sometimes it feels like too "much of a muchness." As well, the dialogue between the two main characters is so poetic that any additional theatrical techniques on top give the impression of unnecessary affectation. For example, a narrated metaphor at the beginning is thoughtful but far too extended, its meaning clear within the first minute as we wait for the characters to lose the level of remove provided by the narration and begin fully interacting with each other. One can't help but think, though, of the connection between the play and theatre itself, with its telling and retelling of stories.

While it is not an easy show to watch, LESSON IN FORGETTING is extremely powerful. If you've ever witnessed the decline of a loved one, or had a happy memory fade into ephemera, you may want to put a tissue in your mask for safekeeping.

How to Get Tickets:

Pleiades Theatre's LESSON IN FORGETTING is playing at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts (50 Tank House Lane) until May 22, 2022.

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit https://tickets.youngcentre.ca/overview/13295

Photo Credit: Cylla von Tiedemann

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