Arts & Culture

What: Dinner with the Duchess
Where: Studio Theatre at Streetcar Crowsnest, 345 Carlaw Ave.
When: Now, until Sat., Feb. 2
Highlight: Jan Alexandra Smith’s entrancing oration of eloquent streams of consciousness
Rating: NNN (out of 5)
Why you should go: It’s another demonstration of Nick Green’s talent as one of Toronto’s most promising up-and-coming playwrights

STRUCTURING A PLAY around an interview is a clever trick for allowing exposition to flow naturally without ever becoming a stale info dump. This convention is applied as the baseline underscoring Nick Green’s Dinner with the Duchess, presented in an elegant production by Here For Now Theatre in association with Crow’s, under Kelli Fox’s sturdy direction.

The show completely belongs to Margaret (Jan Alexandra Smith), a tightly wound violin virtuoso who’s come to be nicknamed “the Duchess,” much to her chagrin. After announcing her unexpected retirement, she invites a journalist named Helen (Rosie Simon) into her home, aiming to seal her legacy in one final profile. Margaret insists that she wants the resultant article to be more than just a formulaic puff piece, prompting a series of Q’s and A’s that dig deep into the recesses of her past and psyche. As layers of decorum begin to peel away over an increasingly tense meal, it becomes apparent that neither party is being entirely forthcoming with the other about what they hope this interaction will uncover.

This piece really strikes its chords when grappling with the challenges of female excellence in male-dominated fields, balancing one’s artistic output against their public image, and a fairly nuanced handling of the conversations around cancel culture — I expect there to be many comparisons to the recent Cate Blanchett film, Tár. Though the play arguably concludes with its own firm moral stance on this highly polarizing (and often exhausting) cultural lightning rod, I’m left wishing it had devoted as much time and effort to exploring the dissenting opinion. Green clearly recognizes that both sides of this debate have valid points, but that riveting argument loses some of its steam when one side is ultimately declared the unambiguous winner.

Margaret initially presents herself to Helen as agreeably down to earth, being more than a little silly in an awkward attempt to seem more personable than she really is. In due time, she sheds this put-upon veneer to release the high-and-mighty genius she was politely trying to suppress. Over time, even that armour cracks, exposing the vulnerable soul who’s been hiding within all along. Smith’s performance is astonishing, perfectly emanating each of these interwoven states of being, and becomes utterly entrancing during eloquent recitations of dense streams of consciousness. Simon holds her own opposite Smith, conveying confidence in Helen’s professional demeanour that gets Margaret backed into all the right corners. David Keeley rounds out the cast as Margaret’s more effortlessly down-to-earth husband, and I completely agree with Helen when she tells him that she’s “glad you could join us. It’s another dimension, which is nice.”

This is a talky drama of ideas that, in Fox’s hands, isn’t given much by way of visual flourish, albeit with one notable exception. Lurking at the centre of Darren Burkett’s pristine Toronto apartment set design is a Picasso-esque portrait of Margaret (painted by Mark Uhre). Though this canvas is never remarked upon within the dialogue, its pop of cubism embodies a fitting visual metaphor for precisely what the play is trying to do: examine Margaret from every possible angle simultaneously, producing a fractious image. And the musical note positioned in place of the painted figure’s heart tells us exactly what keeps her alive.

With all the anticipation surrounding Green’s career as one of Toronto’s most exciting young playwrights, one cannot help situating Dinner with the Duchess among his body of recent work. To my mind, it does not quite meet the transcendent beauty we saw in Casey and Diana, neither achieving that play’s devastating emotional gut punches nor attempting its grandeur as a snapshot of grave historical importance. (P.S. If you missed Casey during its runs at both Stratford and Soulpepper, get yourself on a GO Bus to Hamilton’s Theatre Aquarius next month!) And yet, Duchess is indisputably leaps and bounds ahead of The Last Timbit; we needn’t fear that Green and friends’ artistic integrity has been irrevocably stained by their association with that industrial kitsch parade — for which I genuinely hope they all received high-calorie paycheques.

Even from this middle-of-the-pack placement, Duchess is a worthwhile reminder of Green’s impeccable prose and dramaturgical finesse, realized by a strong production with performers to match. If this show has taught me anything, it’s that an artist’s legacy is a delicate thing and a difficult one to fully capture.