Yerma: intimacy fuelled by wit and over-sharing
28 Jan 2023

by Drew Rowsome - Production photos by Tim Leyes

We are seated in a circular formation around what appears to be a drained wading pool. Or, more aptly, a miniature Greek amphitheatre, gleaming white in the intimate space that is Coal Mine Theatre's new venue. The amphiteatre becomes a flexible space that we stare down on, ready to be entertained but also in judgement. Fort the first scene the stage functions as the yet to be furnished main floor of a three story house that a pseudo-artsy, trendy couple have just purchased. They are celebrating their purchase with champagne—Veuve Clicquot as they repeatedly refer to not quite being at the point to afford Dom Perignon—and are smug about their acquisition. Daren Herbert (Choir Boy, Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, Onegin, If/Then, Do You Want What I Have Got?) gloats charmingly about his theory of swooping in just before gentrification gets a firm grip. His advice is dispensed in a rambling riotous monologue, "Follow the lesbians." His partner, Sarah Gadon, bickers lovingly but the jabs and jokes they trade begin to reveal tensions in their relationship.

It is all great fun, a vaguely nasty satire on social climbing and being determinedly hip and self-consciously free-spirited. The lines are witty and laced with pop culture references that the duo lob expertly. There are also references to the Leslieville setting which takes on an extra edge when the theatre sits on the edge of Leslieville, and the audience is, in the majority, composed of those who laugh in recognition of our own similar foibles and hubris. But when Gadon turns the celebration into a statement of her desire to turn one of the upper floors into a nursery, the jibes get a little more vicious and the tensions a little more obvious. When Gadon's character becomes obsessed with becoming pregnant, Yerma gets darker and, while still darkly funny, harrowing. More characters are introduced and they are all highly articulate and quick with a blunt one-liner, but they also all speak between the words. Their real passions and thoughts are not to be spoken, and the technique used by playwright Simon Stone is clever, drawing us into the melodrama as we piece the relationships together.

There is a lot of discussion of the desires and perils of having a child. Of what it means. And of the envy and anger that comes with being surrounded by those who are casually fertile. Everyone is striving for intimacy of one form or another, with Gabon's character deciding that a child is the way to achieve it. The remarkable Martha Burns gives a comic performance that would have swept the floor with a lesser cast (or with a few more scenes), comparing pregnancy to the Alien chestburster and dispensing brutal but deceptively sweet comments. Her awkward attempt at intimacy, a simple hug with her daughter, is uproariously hilarious physical comedy and horrifyingly heartbreaking. The other sister, Louise Lambert, is more grounded, more trapped, but has learned to speak the academic semi-truths that the mother wields with a wink at her own daring. Herbert too can play that game but he trips up when he lets himself become vulnerable, to peel away the sexy, nerdy cockiness to leave his heart and soul exposed.

Gabon's character is a journalist and a blogger (from the days when either of those were financially viable career options) who is known for being 'honest' with her readers. She begins chronicling her attempts to become pregnant. Her social media savvy assistant, a bubbly and scarily narcissistically oblivious Michelle Mohammed (Orphans for the Czar), insists that Gabon's character dig deeper and to share all her raw emotions and feelings with her readers. Intimate details and emotions. She does. Betraying confidences, especially with Herbert, creates new wounds and conflicts. Spilling her guts on the blog leads, inevitably, to a more literal and less literate form of the same. Gabon has a difficult task, her charm is as crucial as her obsessions and ruthlessness. Her character is that determined life-of-th-party, needing to prove she is more sexually liberated (an anal sex joke lands to resoundingly nervous laughter) and cutting edge. She flirts with an old flame and Gabon and Johnathan Sousa make particularly dramatic, tense and comic use of the spaces between the words. Meanwhile Gabon and Herbert generate palpable if brittle heat. Though much of their sex life is played for either pathos or comedy, it is a given that when it clicked, it was, for better or worse, Pornhub-worthy.

It is the dialogue and performances that drive Yerma. Director Diana Bentley (Knives in Hens, Category E) achieves a solid naturalism, these people live and breathe outside their appearances between blackouts, tempered with an awareness of the inherent theatricality they present both as actors and as characters. And because they are close enough to touch, the effect is riveting. When Yerma eases into an expressionistic exposition laden frenzy, the room seems to swirl and draw us into the vortex of emotions. It is a stunningly casually clever effect that makes the climax all the more taut. While we can joke and brag about our sophistication, our basic animal urges bubble up from within and the intimacy that is being grasped at, remains just out of reach. It cannot be replaced with wit, bravado or sex. Or a child.