Queen Street News Toronto

Theatre: A Slight Ache, 2012 Toronto Fringe Festival
Red Rabbit Theatre Productions
presents Harold Pinter’s early
masterpiece, A Slight Ache
(1958), at the 2012 Toronto
Fringe Festival. The play is typically
Pinteresque: two people in
a room are suddenly interrupted
as a third person enters, thus intruding
upon the habitual recurrence
of their internal
environment.
A Slight Ache can be classified
as a Comedy of Menace, a pun
on the Victorian-era Comedy of
Manners, which is defined as a
comic work that satirizes social
interaction. The play employs
comic elements in its criticism
of the fundamental actions of
Modern society, however there
exists an air of violence that produces
an effect of uncertainty. A
Slight Ache opens with Edward
(Jason Thompson) and Flora (Angela
Froese) in their country
house, a sphere familiar to them,
however the presence of the
Matchseller (Christopher Kelk)
selling his wares outside of their
back gate disrupts their comfortable
solitude. Thus, the external
world becomes menacing as it
vaguely threatens to displace the
conventional atmosphere of routine
existence. It too becomes
evident that Edward and Flora,
though long married, are incapable
of understanding one another.
From their banal
observations on the flowers
blossoming in their garden
emerges an ambiguity between
words spoken and the portentous
silences that follow, which
create a depth of meaning and
reveal an unsettling quality.
The Matchseller remains quiescent
throughout the entire play,
unable or unwilling to answer
commonplace questions regarding
his identity. This lack of action
serves as a catalyst for
Edward’s eventual breakdown;
furthermore the Matchseller’s silence
becomes one that bears
both hostile and symbolic implications
and is perceived as the
intent to conceal meaning. In
comparison, the tedious exchange
between Edward and
Flora was in itself meaningless
yet potent, and Pinter suggests
that such conversations are an
act of evasion, an attempt to veil
the emptiness within the self
and society as a whole.
Under the direction of Mark
Schoenberg, Pinter’s depiction
of the crisis of Modernity and his
visionary stylistic theatricality
are accomplished with thoughtfulness
and subtle ambiguity. In
the darkened seats of Tarragon
Main, I thought of how this playwright
was not only able to perform
the menial task of depicting
daily experience as it occurs, but
that he possessed the forethought
to be capable of discerning
the ethereal possibilities
of the postmodern condition.
With this sentiment, dear reader,
I propose that, should you have
the fortuity to attend a performance
of any of Pinter’s works,
you should immerse yourself in
the deviant world of the uncanny.
torontotheater-reviews.com is printed in five local papers. Story By: Nikoleta Curcin
FUN and DRINK : The Beach Winery
The Beach Winery has been in
continuous operation since 1995 at
2208 Queen Street East. Originally a
Wine Not franchise, the store has
grown through two previous owners
into its present day Winexpert Beach
Winery under the management and
ownership of David and Cathy Toye.
Dave had worked for ten years with
the original owner and after a hiatus
of four years came back to purchase
the store and continue the
personable service that Wine Not
customers were used to. Dave works
with long-time employee and manabout-Beaches
Richard Kelly. Richard
has seven years of wine making
experience. Together they help our
customers perfect their creations.
This year Evan Minnaker has joined
as part-time wine making assistant.
Evan is keenly interested in the
quality control that the store puts into
the wine making process. Beach
Winery is proud to bring to its over
4,000 satisfied customers the quality
product produced by Winexperts.
Winexperts is a division of Global
Vintners which in turns is part of the
Peller Estates Group. The bottom line
of this is that our experts search the
world for the best vineyards to buy
the grapes from to produce the juices
to ferment. They also test and
produce the
best yeasts and
formulas for
each type of
grape chosen.
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