Review: (Winnipeg / Theatre) The Valley

Alden Adair, Nancy Sorel (photo by Bruce Monk)

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
Climbing out of The Valley is never simple.
by Edgar Governo
@pseudohistorian

Depression and mental illness in general have a complex and often paradoxical place in our society, which criticizes people for not getting treatment or seeing the signs of a problem in others while also attaching a stigma to those who need therapy and/or medication to deal with such problems. Although there is a wide spectrum between being completely neuro-typical and having delusional psychotic breaks, people are often reduced to those who are on the 'right' and 'wrong' side of an arbitrary psychological divide.

The Valley revolves around a central encounter between Connor (Toby Hughes), a teenager who has returned home from university because of a debilitating mental illness, and Dan (Alden Adair), the Vancouver cop who has to confront him one day at a SkyTrain station. Playwright Joan MacLeod isn't concerned with creating a Rashomon-like story about ambiguity over what happened in that encounter, but with how our inner turmoils affect our take on reality; even when two or more people can agree on the main facts of a situation, each person's perception of its emotional landscape is different.

Review: (Toronto) The Valley

Ian Lake and Colin Mercer (photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

The Sacrosanct Sphere
by Zoe Erwin-Longstaff

Set up like an office furniture showroom, all in muted artichoke and beige, the Tarragon Mainspace was arranged as an alley, which is theatre-speak for audience on either side of the stage. This requires that we encroach on the world of the play in order to take our seats – a movement, common enough, though it still somehow feels like a violation. But, while we traipsed across, one area remained unalloyed. At centre stage there was a perfect circle, an orb of seraphic light. This space, the healing circle, intimidates even the four actors at first; they deliver thoughtful monologues at its perimeter, basking in its warm light, but never stepping in. Then, all of a sudden, the narrative lurches forward, vulnerabilities reveal themselves, and before long characters aren’t so much stepping in as stomping across or collapsing in defeat, in this once sacrosanct sphere. 

Review: (Calgary) The Valley

Erin MacKinnon, Kyle Jespersen (photo by Trudie Lee Photography)

Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing
by Josef Vermeulen
@YYZatcboy

The most striking thing about The Valley is not the intersection of policing and mental illness, nor the issues of suicide and substance abuse, although all of those ideas are touched on. No, the most striking thing is how a play that is ostensibly about such fertile ideas can say absolutely nothing about any of them. 

The overall story of The Valley revolves around a singular event. Teenaged Connor experiences a violent psychotic break on the SkyTrain in Vancouver, and is arrested, in the process breaking his jaw. Arresting Officer, Dan, is then caught up in Connor’s mother Sharon’s attempts to deal with the perceived excessive use of force in the arrest of her son, and his wife Janie’s post partum depression and suicide attempts.

The main problem with the play is that it tries to cover too many large themes. The result of combining all of these issues - all of which could be stand-alone plays - is that each idea gets perfunctory coverage in the play and then is forgotten. Major themes such as suicide and depression are simply mentioned once then glossed over as we move on to the next thing.