In the Wake of Wettlaufer at The Blyth Festival

Between 2007 and 2016, Elizabeth Wettlaufer, a registered nurse in Ontario, murdered eight elderly patients under her care and attempted to kill six others. Her weapon was lethal doses of insulin. Astonishingly enough, her crimes were never detected by the institutions and agencies for which she worked. It was only when she entered a drug rehabilitation program and confessed that they came to light. The case sent shock waves through the province and resulted in a prolonged inquiry that produced damning evidence of a criminally dysfunctional health care system. Wettlaufer is currently serving a life sentence with no chance of parole for twenty-five years. Ontario is still dealing with the repercussions.

The Blyth Festival has a history of creating dramatic works that address headline grabbing events in the province. The Pigeon King (2017), for example, was based on a $70 million ponzi scheme involving breeding phony “racing” pigeons. In the Wake of Wettlaufer continues the tradition. But whereas The Pigeon King told the story of how Arlan Galbraith bilked hundreds of farmers, Wettlaufer takes a different tack, one that is devastatingly effective.

Co-authors Gil Garratt and Kelly McIntosh focus not on the criminal and her modus operandi but on the human toll the scandal takes on a single fictional family of four siblings, three daughters and a son, dealing with the dementia of their father and his eventual placement in a long-term care facility. Wettlaufer isn’t even mentioned until almost an hour into the play, when their father is dead and buried. Like everyone else affected by the revelation of Wettlaufer’s confession the siblings learn of the case, not from the nursing home, not from the health authorities, but from the evening news.

The family struggles through settling their father’s estate, which strains their relationships to the breaking point, as details of the failures of the long-term care industry are revealed. The play uses actual recordings from news reports, statements by the Justice of the Court of Appeal who conducted the Public Inquiry, and even the testimony of a survivor of one of Wettlaufer’s attempted murders. It’s powerful stuff.

The siblings in the cast, Caroline Gillis, Nathan Howe, Rachel Jones, and Jane Spidell, are uniformly excellent. I would single out Ms. Spidell only because she was a late addition to the company. Robert King offers a moving and scarily accurate portrait of a man descending into the hell of dementia. Garratt has directed them well on the minimalist set which he also designed. Rebecca Picherack’s lighting does a nice job of easing the transitions between scenes.

By focusing on a single family, Garratt and McIntosh avoid the sensationalism and righteous anger that the topic might suggest or even seem to demand. The Public Inquiry ended with a result guaranteed to please no one who had been affected. No individuals were cited for censure, let alone punishment; rather the broken system was held responsible and recommendations for corrective action laid down. For many of the families whose loved ones were directly affected or who were in long-term care there seemed no sense of closure.

In the Wake of Wettlaufer attempts to provide some semblance of closure and comfort to the Ontario community Blyth serves — and it’s safe to say that virtually everyone who will see this play at Blyth has been affected to a greater or lesser degree by the tragedy. The play ends with a messenger from a higher realm bearing a message of hope and reconciliation. The ancient Greeks used to do this sort of thing and it is from them that we get the word for what Garratt and McIntosh have given us — catharsis.

In the Wake of Wettlaufer plays through September 6, 2019 in repertory with other productions.

Blyth Festival
423 Queen Street
Blyth, ON N0M 1H0
(877) 862-5984
blythfestival.com

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