Part of Soulpepper’s mandate is to produce works from the classical canon of theatre, so, as a regular patron, I’m used to seeing its company members dressed in restrictive Victorian garb and elegantly performing in fake British accents. Imagine my surprise then, when attending performance of its latest offering, High Life, the pre-curtain anti-mobile device announcement tells us to “shut off your f*cking cell phones.”
And that was just the start of the F-bomb blitzkrieg that is Canadian playwright Lee MacDougall’s darkly comic play about a bunch of morphine-addicted criminals planning to rob a bank. It took the theatre world by storm with its premiere at World Stage in 1996, and the Soulpepper production is its first revival in Toronto since then.
The leader of these misfits is Dick (Diego Matamoros), who has come up with the “big one:” an idea that will make them all so rich that they’ll never have to worry about money ever again. And why would they worry about anything when they could have enough dough to spend on morphine to be high for the rest of their lives?
Rounding out his delinquent team is the bully Bug (Michael Hanrahan), the sickly and silly Donnie (Oliver Dennis) and pretty boy Billy (Mike Ross).
The play’s plot is sketchy at best, but its believability relies on the strength of the four actors. Dennis steals the show with his dim-witted vulnerability and precise comic timing. Matamoros makes for a capable leader, even though his ex-con character relies a bit too heavily on his raspy voice and his fluidity with expletives (though, I admit, it’s difficult for me to shake off his terrific performance as Felix in last year’s The Odd Couple, the antithesis to everything Dick represents). Ross, meanwhile, is a good match for Billy’s affable charm and cockiness.
I enjoyed Hanrahan’s strong performances in The Debt and The Odd Couple, but there’s something too stage-y about his role as a thug here. His Stratford pedigree hampers his badassedness, and his climactic moment with Ross seems, well, staged.
I’m nearly always impressed by the sets at Soulpepper, and while it’s understandable that Lorenzo Savoini’s design would be anything but lavish, the set is too plain by Soulpepper’s standards (the bank, for example, is simply a cardboard cutout).
Paul Humphrey’s rock ‘n’ roll sound design, on the other hand, is perfect (and it helps if you’re a big Bruce Springsteen fan).
There are some high moments in High Life, but just like the lives of the aging criminals in the play, it was probably better when it was still young and new.
Young Centre for the Performing Arts, 55 Mill St., 416-866-8666. Runs until March 28.
