Review: (Toronto) carried away on the crest of a wave

Richard Zeppieri, Mayko Nguyenn (photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

Brought Together by What Tears us Apart
carried away on the crest of a wave is a stunning new addition to the list of great Canadian plays
by Stuart Munro
@StuartMunroTO

“I am the one who pulled you out of the water. And you can call me if you ever need that again.”

These two sentences, spoken towards the end of Act I of David Yee’s new play, carried away on the crest of a wave, sum up everything this new Canadian work is hoping to express. The brilliance of it is that it is only at the play’s end that one is fully able to put the pieces together and realize why. Simultaneously, Yee’s first work as Tarragon’s playwright-in-residence cements his position as a voice worth listening to, not just now, but over the years to come.

Inspired by the 2004 Boxing Day Indian Ocean tsunami, the play is no simple retelling of the events of that tragic day. Rather, it explores its aftermath – sometimes in the hours immediately after, sometimes years later – in the hopes of answering one question: “what happens when the events that tie us together are the same that tear us apart?” This is no simple question, and there is no simple answer.

Yee’s writing here is some of the best I have heard in a long time, and the focus is always on the personal experiences of the characters.

The evening is a series of vignettes in which an extraordinary company of seven actors play over 21 different characters. The scenes range from the comic to the tragic, touching on issues of grief, religion, philosophy, mercy, and protest. There is an ebb and flow between the intensities of these moments, and the pacing almost always provides a palette cleanse when needed. Sometimes the scenes intersect with one another, often they don’t. But with every passing moment, one or more of the characters takes away or leaves behind some object or memory or piece of history from the flooded stage – the diverse detritus of their shared experience. Separated by days, months, years and thousands of kilometres, these objects, in their common space, show us with astonishing clarity and simplicity that “we are all connected, and none of us are alone.”

Director Nina Lee Aquino has assembled a truly stunning ensemble of actors. Kawa Ada, Ash Knight, Richard Lee, John Ng, Mayko Nguyen, Richard Zeppieri, and even little Eponine Lee portray an astonishing array of characters, and each actor is able to transform themselves completely from moment to moment. And while every performer is given a chance to shine, an early scene between Kawa Ada as Ma’mar and Ash Knight as Father Thomas as they discuss the validity of not only miracles, but of their religions and of life, manages in many ways to capture the complexities of the human experience of this tragedy. Yee’s writing here is some of the best I have heard in a long time, and the focus is always on the personal experiences of the characters. Nina Lee Aquino’s direction puts the stories of all these characters first, and Camellia Koo’s simple set of a wooden boardwalk, some clear plastic, and a flooded stage allows the stage to become anywhere it needs to be, ably aided by Michelle Ramsey’s lighting design and Michelle Bensimon’s sound design.

carried away on the crest of a wave does exactly what its title suggests: it picks up you and takes you to unexpected places and unexpected times. These stories rarely end the way we expect them – sometimes they are gentle, and sometimes they are not – but they constantly remind us of the interconnectedness of people who, in terrible times, are brought together by what tears them apart. We could be saved, or helped, or hurt, or have our opinion changed by anyone at any time. And nothing shows this more plainly than a grown man saying to a young girl he barely knows, “I am the one who pulled you out of the water.” carried away on the crest of a wave is spellbinding and captivating and glorious and theatre at its very best.

carried away on the crest of a wave runs until May 26 at the Tarragon Theatre.