Vern Thiessen’s Vimy at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre

For the first time in Ottawa's theatre history, the National Arts Centre's English Theatre company has collaborated with the Great Canadian Theatre Company to produce a play: Vern Thiessen's Vimy. It's great to see the two heavyweights of the Ottawa theatre scene working together. In fact, I would love to see more collaboration between not only theatre companies but also dance companies, visual artists, and musicians in the future. Sharing resources, talent, and creativity is truly the best way to grow the arts in this town.

Thiessen's script tells the story of four broken (physically and mentally) soldiers recovering in hospital after the battle of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. They are cared for by Clare (Katie Swift), a nurse who, in an effort to learn what happened to her love, discovers the stories behind the men in her care and the battle itself.

Unfortunately, there is not a lot of depth to any of the individual stories in Thiessen's Vimy. They come across as a collection of strung together clichés and well worn national stereotypes. In some instances, plotlines begin without ever really being explored such as the possibly homosexual relationship between Sid (Jonathan Eliot Koensgen) and Will (Nicholas Di Gaetano). Consequently, the script on the whole feels more like an outline rather than a finished work. Thiessen also has the characters gasping for breath throughout the show to punctuate their stories. This is a very awkward convention and ultimately fails to draw in the audience.

The battle scenes, however, are quite well done and Jock Munro has done a fabulous job with the lighting design for this production. In fact, it is the best lighting design I have seen so far this year and brings the battle of Vimy Ridge, and days in the trenches, to life.

On opening night, many of the performances were a little uneven. While Kevin Loring does an admirable job of playing Mike, a soldier of aboriginal descent, his performance as Claude (a French Canadian) was severely hampered by Loring's struggle with speaking French. Claude's story is heavily based in French language politics and therefore Loring's lack of fluency was a distraction.

Jonathan Eliot Koensgen (Sid) and John Doucet (J.P./Bert) stood out in this ensemble cast. Both gave strong performances that resonated after the show closed.

This co-production of Vimy is certainly attracting the attention of audiences. Many of the performance dates are already sold out, and the run has been extended. For more information and performance dates, visit http://www.gctc.ca/plays/next-season/vimy.

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