Theatre review: No Child... is a high-flying acting feat with a message about art that we need right now
Ali Watson flips back and forth between the characters at a Bronx high school, in a timely story of a teacher trying to stage a play
Ali Watson (who alternates the demanding role with Celia Aloma) sometimes pivots back and forth between characters within seconds.
The Arts Club Theatre Company presents No Child… at the Newmont Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre until November 8. Also available via digital stream. See theatre’s COVID protocols here
THE ARTS Club’s first live production in half a year gives you a good idea of what a night out at the theatre will look like in coming months. And, perhaps more importantly, what the possibilities might be moving forward in these most uncertain of times.
Playwright Nilaja Sun’s No Child… is a fitting first foray into pandemic-era theatre: a solo work that showcases BIPOC talent, with one person playing 16 characters—often switching between roles within seconds. The subject matter? The importance of teachers and the arts, and finding a way to gather and create and learn, no matter what the obstacles. That hits home right now—whether you’re talking about an education system struggling to reach marginalized high-school kids online or a theatre scene trying to overcome its own barriers. And then set against the wider landscape of the Black Lives Matter movement, this micro-play could not be more timely.
First, the procedure. Audience members line up, several metres apart outside the theatre. We enter the lobby, one-by-one (or, for those daring enough to spend a night out with a friend, two-by-two.) Inside, we give a staff member behind a Plexiglas shield contact information, sign off on being symptom-free, then sanitize our hands before entering the theatre and finding a designated seat. Big sections of rows are blocked off and people are staggered apart in ones and twos, everyone wearing masks. (When I spot a friend I haven’t seen since lockdown and get up to say hi to her, an usher promptly directs me back to my seat. Whoops.)
On-stage, Ali Watson (who alternates the role with Celia Aloma) is the only person not wearing a mask. Anyone uncomfortable with the setup can watch the livestream from home.
No Child… is based on the New York playwright’s own experiences as an “artist-teacher” in a tough Bronx high school. And, thankfully, she’s written a work that manages to feel uplifting without ever sugarcoating things.
The script follows her almost naively ambitious attempt to lead a class of rowdy grade 10s in a production of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good—which is itself about the staging of a play by convicts in 18th-century Australia. (“Yo! Justin Timberlake done wrote himself a play!” one student yells.) As Watson’s sage fourth-wall-breaking janitor-narrator tells us off the top of the show, “What you’re about to see is a story about a play within a play within a play.” But in an illustration of how disarmingly unpretentious Sun’s writing is, that complex structure becomes a running joke.
While Our Country’s Good is of zero interest to the kids at first, they start to relate to the way the convicts are treated in the play. Still, Miss Sun has trouble just getting the teens to show up, let alone shut up.
Throughout, Sun the playwright subtly criticizes the socio-political systems that have brought this school, with its underpaid teachers and underfed kids, to its sorry state. The title refers to George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” act—the one that introduced standardized tests, leaving the arts, or anything outside that rigid mandate, in its dust. The high school, meanwhile, is named for Malcolm X; in Kimira Reddy and Vanka Salim’s minimalistic-yet-atmospheric set, his portrait stares down over the chaos amid the chipped, graffiti-splattered walls and bashed lockers of the hallways. A character also points out the sobering fact that it takes just 18 minutes on the train to get from one of the U.S.’s richest zip codes to this ‘hood, the poorest congressional district in the country.
Ali Watson bounces around a minimalistic yet atmospheric set. Photo by Moonrider Productions.
The real fun of No Child…, of course, comes in watching the actor, in this case Watson, shapeshift between characters. She pours herself into each one in a wildly physical performance. It’s hard to say how this might translate on livestream; in person, in this intimate, half-empty theatre, it’s gobsmacking to see her channel the different energies of the students and staff. Sometimes she ages decades within minutes.
There’s the old janitor who’s seen it all; the no-shit Jamaican security guard with the metal detector; the timid new teacher who can’t control the class; or the Russian sub who bangs her fists and yells “Quiet! Quiet! Quiet!”.
Amid the students, a highlight is prima-donna Shondrika, who complains “This my boring!” in some of the script’s dead-on slang. She ends up loving the spotlight. Flipping her braids she complains, “You done broke up my flow!” when a teacher tries to give her feedback on her lines. You can’t help but love the hyperactive, Red Bull-fuelled Brian, the too-cool-for-school Jerome, or the shy, mumbling Chris.
Watson’s unaffected, straight-from-the-heart approach suits Sun’s unembellished, street-poetic words. Just listen to the way the janitor describes the girls’ washroom off the top of the show—a mix of “makeup, pomade, and gossip” filling the air. When Miss Sun recalls her gigs at suburban schools, she says the only problems she has to deal with there are soccer moms, bulimia, and people asking her how she washes her hair.
Omari Newton’s direction keeps things moving over a fast 65 minutes, making the stage feel bigger than it is. Blocking and lighting transform the intimate set from a school hallway to a commuter train.
There are a few drawbacks. Sun’s script doesn’t have enough time to dig deeply into the tragedies that happen offstage, in the students’ world outside the school. That grimmer content feels brushed over as a result. And Sun is a bit quick to win over her class.
But watching Watson find her flow, shifting between conversations not just between two characters but sometimes an entire class, will remind you of the power of theatre. By the end, when each of the unruly grade 10s puts his or her own something on the final bow, you'll know exactly who is doing what--without them saying a word. It's an acrobatlike achievement. And probably just the kind of thing you need to see right now if, over the past six months, you've forgotten what one live person on a real stage can do.
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