12 Dinners At Here For Now Theatre
Longtime Stratford Festival star Steve Ross, now wowing audiences as Albin in La Cage Aux Folles, has reunited with director Jan Alexandra Smith to bring us 12 Dinners at Here For Now Theatre’s intimate tent at the back of the Stratford Perth Museum.
When I saw his beautifully written and powerfully performed Life Without last season I expressed some doubts as to whether or not it was a play. I have no such reservations about his current offering.
12 Dinners is a fully formed piece of theatre – well cast, beautifully performed, and sensitively directed – that heralds Steve Ross’s emergence as an important Canadian playwright.
Director Smith tells us in a program note that 12 Dinners is autobiographical and a “thank you” to the playwright’s Mom. So it’s perhaps not too surprising that the central character is named Steve.
In the play, Steve (Ben Skipper) serves as our guide and confidant as he shares with us the story of a year’s worth of monthly trips to the family home for what inevitably become uncomfortable interactions with his mum.
He assures us that his parents don’t know we are there and they will frequently freeze as Steve breaks the fourth wall to fill us in on some salient detail, make an editorial comment, or drop a hint of what’s coming next. Both playwright and actor handle the device beautifully and it allows for some welcome bursts of laughter that help dissipate the tension in an increasingly bleak tale.
Almost 30, Steve is something of a lost soul, unfulfilled in a job he hates and wondering what to do with his life. His mother, Bettye (Jane Slidell), suffers from crippling depression, which she stubbornly refuses to treat properly. His father Jim (Geoffrey Pounsett) is highly intelligent and widely read – “the smartest man I know” – who nonetheless is at a loss as to how to handle Bettye’s illness. So he suffers in silence, reaching out to Steve to help him “fix things” in the family dynamic.
Depression emerges as something of a family curse in 12 Dinners. Bettye inherited it from her father and she has passed it on to Steve in the form of his bipolar disorder, an inheritance for which she feels profoundly guilty. Ross explores the topic of mental illness with both delicacy and surgical precision as the play progresses towards a denouement that reduced me to tears.
Anyone familiar with Steve Ross’s work on the Stratford Festival stage over the years – and I’m guessing that includes the majority of the audience at Here For Now – won’t be able to help noticing that Ben Skipper looks like a young Steve Ross, which for me at least added an extra poignancy to the proceedings.
Skipper is delightful in the role and shows every sign of becoming a terrific character actor. He was brilliantly funny as the nightmare illegitimate son no man hopes to meet in the knockabout farce It Runs In The Family a few seasons back and he is equally adept at handling the much more emotionally intense material in 12 Dinners.
Jane Spidell’s painfully honest, warts-and-all portrayal of Bettye can be hard to watch at times. For anyone who sees echoes of their own family members in her behavior I suspect it will be especially difficult. That, of course, is what makes her performance such a special achievement.
As her long-suffering husband, Geoffrey Pounsett simmers quietly until he erupts in angry frustration. There is never the least doubt that he is deeply in love with Bettye even as he struggles to cope.
Spidell and Pounsett have lengthy resumes in film and television. What a treat to be able too see them exercise their considerable talents in the intimate confines of Here For Now’s tent!
Jan Alexandra Smith’s invisible hand is palpable in both the performances and the seamless way she handles the transitions between dinners. Here For Now’s creative team (Darren Burkett, sets, and Monique Lund, costumes) do their usual unobtrusive best with limited space and budget.
If you, a family member, or anyone you know suffers from mental illness, I urge you to see this play. Bring tissues.
12 Dinners continues at Here For Now Theatre through July 27, 2024. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the Here For Now website.
[image: Here For Now Theatre; artwork by Mark Uhre]
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