As I Lay Dying is brilliantly physical, but loses William Faulkner's wit

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      By William Faulkner. A Theatre Smith-Gilmour production, presented by the Arts Club Theatre and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. At the Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre on Thursday, January 26. Continues until February 12

      Based on William Faulkner’s novel of the same name, As I Lay Dying centres on Addie Bundren’s final wish: to be buried in her hometown of Jefferson, Mississippi. As last demands go, it’s simple enough, but everything veers wildly out of control thanks to her deeply dysfunctional family and an escalating series of misadventures. Think of it as a kind of southern-gothic precursor to Weekend at Bernie’s, but with fewer indignities to a corpse. Mostly.

      The book is meant to be a black comedy, but only some of that makes it to the stage. The physical humour is well-executed, but the actors’ line deliveries often fall flat. As I Lay Dying’s best moments are the innovative bursts of extraordinary physicality. As Jewel Bundren, the young, hothead son, Benjamin Muir is tasked with playing both a man taming a horse and the wild horse itself—and he’s brilliant. He bounces and reels, gallops and snorts, and transforms his body from man to beast in seconds.

      The Toronto-based company’s cofounders, Dean Gilmour and Michele Smith, met at Jacques Lecoq’s movement and mime school in 1978, so physical precision and believability are key foundations of their shows. In As I Lay Dying, this translates into minimal staging, no sets, and only a few props. Everything else is manifested bodily, which works when it comes to specifics—Muir’s horse-and-man sequences, and a gorgeous underwater scene wherein several people are fighting for their lives against the undertow of a river.

      But bodies can only convey so much, and the most basic and integral elements of Faulkner’s story are lost, like his wry, macabre wit and and a sense of the poverty and isolation of the Bundrens' home. We also can’t fully appreciate the escalation of the indignities and absurdities the Bundrens face and bring upon themselves in the ensuing days because it’s hard to get a sense of how much time is passing. Even though the play itself feels long, it’s hard to know if the Bundrens have been carting around their mother’s corpse for two days or 30. But As I Lay Dying’s biggest sin—uneven southern accents notwithstanding—is that it drags rather than zips because of a script that relies heavily on narration. Too often we’re being told, not shown, which saps the company of its biggest strength: the artistry of action and making every movement count.

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