Sila

Play (2014)
by Chantal Bilodeau

With Jaime Carrillo (Kuvageegai), Reneltta Arluk (Leanna), Mael Nacer (Jean), Robert Murphy (Thomas), Sophorl Ngin (Veronica/Monica), Thesersa Nguyen (Daughter), Danny Bryck (Raphael), Gabrielle Weiler (Shadow Puppeteer), Skye Ellis (Bear Puppeteer)

This collage-like play involves several interlacing dramas. Leanna (Reneltta Arluk) is an Inuit, an activist, and an engaged spokesperson for her community. Her daughter, Veronica (Sophorl Ngin), a poet-singer-performer, has a troubled son and she wrestles with the idea of moving south to Montreal in order to find a context which may help him. Thomas (Robert Murphy) is a retiring official in the Canadian Coast Guard who advocates building additional ports in the arctic. Raphael (Danny Bryck) is his younger associate whose girlfriend is ready to give birth to their child with him as the principal birth support and who also is on crisis duty for the Coast Guard. Jean (Nael Nacer) is a scientist who is fraught with the tension between doing objective research and engaging in the sort of advocacy that seems appropriate given what he observes. And there are two polar bears, a mother and son, who face the trials of climate change as well.

There is a lot going on in this play, and all of it is dramatic. If one approaches the story lines as suggestive of the main general theme, it is likely that this production of interlocking somewhat disparate scenes will be most satisfying.

Each of the stories screams out for more complete individual treatment. What is really going on with Veronica’s son? We know there is distress because of something related to climate change, but it would be good to know more in order to fully absorb the intensity of the drama. What is behind the seeming aloofness of Leanna’s stance? She is an ardent activist, but when it comes time to respond to a more personal familial drama, one wonders what her sense of removal is all about. Reneltta Arluk gives Leanna an energetic, poised and articulate disposition, but all the intensity of emotional response falls to her daughter, Veronica. This does not quite make sense, but we do not really get enough of a story to understand what is going on.

As the scientist, Jean, Nael Nacer, a compelling actor, gives an earnest sense of being caught tragically in the middle of things both intellectually and personally, but, again, because of the episodic quality of the script, we’re not sure of the implications of all the forces that are pulling on him.

The mythical dimension of Inuit life also enters through a related tale about Nuliajuk, the Inuit goddess of the ocean and underworld, but the story is introduced in such a way that it adds another narrative in the swirl of an already complicated network of them, diminishing some of the impact it deserves.

The polar bears appear on stage as fabulous puppets. Designed by local muralist and sculptor David Fichter, they are magical. Controlled by several actors, their legs, torsos and heads move in appropriately lumbering, but graceful, ways. There is a beauty and delicacy in their appearance that adds its own charm and appeal to this show, giving it the most cohesive and penetrating dimension of that naturalistic and mythic feel the play offers.

Overall, though the play offers several personal dramas, it comes across, in the end, as a weaving together of ideas about global warming and its effects on this indigenous population. This confluence of ideas is very suggestive, and each of the dramas points in the direction of a larger emotional landscape, even though the whole calls out for more dramatic cohesion.

– BADMan