A questionable production
Vinci
by Maureen Hunter
directed by Gordon McCall
Centaur theatre
During the first half of Centaur's current production, Vinci by Maureen Hunter, I mentally asked "Why?".
Why did Hunter choose to write a play with the same title as Robert Lepage's succès d'estime? Why is John Dinning's set allowed to steal scenes? Why is Leonardo's mature art featured on this same set of him as a child? Why is the first half wholly expository? Why don't they speed it up? Why did Gordon McCall take most of his directorial decisions? Why am I here anyway?
It's not a terrible play; it's ponderous, though. It requires suspension of disbelief (not a bad thing) as well as suspension of moral judgment and good sense. It's exasperating. But the story is an interesting work of imagination. The final scene is gagging, but I suppose it is nice to see small children having a good time while contributing to the family fortunes.
Vinci is what Hunter imagines happened to the baby who would grow up to be the genius inventor, dreamer, sculptor, and painter. But the idea that he invented a flying machine at age four is just one of the times you have to suspend disbelief.
It is the story of a rich family (father, two sons), a priest who was a boyhood friend, and two mistreated women who, for some unfathomable reason, love the older son. The two women do their best with the highly literary script. They also develop some character, so both Catherine Allard as Albiera, the unfortunate wife and Carrie Colak as Caterina, Leonardo's despised mother, are believable. Speaking of her gifted and beautiful child, Caterina says, "...they are always beautiful, the ones that are forged in heat."
Marcel Jeannin as the priest Bartolomeo has a quirky charm and all the laughs. He has no power over his favorite parishioners, unfortunately. However, if Piero (Sasha Roiz) had kept his promise not to touch the servant girl, there would have been no story. Piero's father says of him, "He devoted 7 years to the study of law, and not one to the study of discretion." But what the story doesn't explain is why he is not shamed by breaking a promise to his confessor and ruining the maid, but is honour-bound to follow his father's instruction to never see the mother of his child again. Nor why he must follow his father's orders to marry, but how his honour permits him to choose not the strong and beautiful girl his father has chosen, but her shy younger sister. And then desert her. And the script certainly doesn't explain why the child must be brought up exclusively in his grandfather's household, from which his mother is barred.
Kent Allen plays the father, a man whose word is law. But when he snaps out an order, he sounds more petulant than powerful. Daniel Brochu, who usually has an insouciant warmth, is lost here. Maybe because it is never clear how old his character is. Is he an unusually well-spoken child? Is he a young man who is invisible because he is the second son?
In the second half, there is action, and the evening becomes far more interesting. The set continues to star, however. We almost miss feeling sorrow for poor Albiera, as her sickbed glides to centre stage.
It ends up being an interesting evening, just not the one we expected. Although set in the village of Vinci between 1451 and 1456, we have no flavour of Italy, of the 15th century, or, indeed, of Leonardo.
Vinci continues until October 20
Centaur Theatre, 453 St-François-Xavier in Old Montreal
Box office: (514) 288-3161.
[ Photos © Yanick McDonald. Top: Sasha Roiz, left, and Carrie Colak; lower photo: Carrie Colak ]
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