CBC gives PARIAH the thumbs up!!

Strindberg has never been called a "comedian," but in their production of his short play Pariah, Fancy Bred Theatre make an admirable effort to find some humour (dark though it may be) in Strindberg's writing.

This story of two men, both exiled in Africa and harbouring their own dark secrets, does indeed mine some laughs, although the themes are pure Strindberg grimness: the duality of hypocrites, the haunting nature of our pasts, the capacity of men to commit - and justify - evil. As Mr. X and Mr. Y (Chris Sabel and Glen Thompson) engage in verbal (and eventually physical) sparring, each tries to gain the upper hand on the other by prying at his weakness, exposing his dark past.

Sabel and Thompson's performances make the production sing - the two create full characters, who truly do seem to be hiding something from us; and much of the black humour of the production comes from their character quirks (the somehow sinister friendliness Sabel gives Mr. X; the awkward politness of Thompson's Mr. Y). Credit is due, too, to co-directors Rod Beilfuss and Suzie Martin for finding comedy in a script that seems to leave little room for it, in carefully-measured pacing and the judicious use of long, uncomfortable silences.

But one of the interesting things about the Master Playwright Festival is seeing the more "formative" works of a master writer, and the production of Pariah outshines the material in this case, which feels more like a unfinished Strindberg sketch than a fully-realized script.

Joff Schmidt