Theatre review: Teenage Dick talks disability, cruelty, and power—and has some killer dance moves
Christopher Imbrosciano brings his lived experience to the role of a student with cerebral palsy in captivating dark comedy inspired by Shakespeare’s Richard III
Teenage Dick. Photo by Moonrider Productions
The Arts Club Theatre Company, in collaboration with Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival and Realwheels Theatre, presents Teenage Dick at the Newmont Stage at BMO Theatre Centre to March 5
MANIPULATIVE, VENGEFUL, AND jealous: Richard Gloucester, Teenage Dick’s modern-day version of Shakespeare’s Richard III, is all of those things and more. His true colours, however, don’t immediately come shining through in playwright Mike Lew’s high school–set tragicomedy. The teen has cerebral palsy (CP), as does Christopher Imbrosciano, the actor who plays him, and he uses his disability to gain sympathy and advantage. Layered with conflicting emotions, loaded with laugh-out-loud humour, and entirely absent of poetic justice, the play takes the very darkest of turns. It also features one of the most jubilant dance scenes audiences will ever see.
At Rosedale High School, handsome, popular star-quarterback Eddie Ivy (Marco Walker-Ng) is running for re-election as class president. He and Anne Margaret (Cassandra Consiglio), a pretty, aspiring dancer, have just broken up, a storyline that later becomes central to Richard’s eventual downward spiral. Fellow student Clarissa Duke (Elizabeth Barrett), a self-centred devout Christian who has her eyes set on Stanford, also enters the presidential race. Overseeing the election is enthusiastic teacher Elizabeth York (Jennifer Lines). Richard, the lowly junior-class secretary, third in line to the “throne”, tries to get his lone friend Barbara “Buck” Buckingham (Cadence Rush Quibell) to help him with his scheme: “Senior elections are now upon us, and from here I will vault past my current inglorious station. Not by campaigning, not by a pity vote, but by systematically destroying the competition,” Richard says. “Yeah! I’ll take down Eddie and Clarissa, and hold dominion over this whole school.”
Richard is pegged as a weirdo in part because of his Shakespearean-speaking style, tossing out dramatic phrases that no regular teenager would ever be caught dead using. He describes Eddie as a “lamprey feeding off his own braggadocio” and says to Buck things like “Hie thee, hence” and “Soft you, now”—to which his pal responds, “Who talks like that?”
Unsurprisingly, Richard is also bullied because of his disability, called a cripple, a pretzel, and a freak. He walks with a gait and falls, speaking to those around him about the way CP affects his physical abilities. He compares the condition to that moment when you step on a patch of ice you didn’t notice and brace yourself before wiping out—something he (like Imbrosciano) feels all the time. This kind of casual, frank on-stage dialogue carries over off-stage, giving able-bodied viewers a glimpse into some of the day-to-day realities of the condition.
Lew wrote the parts of Richard and Buck specifically for actors with disabilities, the latter being a wheelchair user. He embeds within the script issues that go far beyond the hunger for absolute power and the terrible lengths the lead character will go to to obtain it. Teenage Dick delves deeply into questions of morality, the limits of pity, the role of the victim, the way anything can be justified, and how people with disabilities are often invisible.
While Richard has the audience rooting for him early on in the play, his actions become increasingly abhorrent. Level-headed Buck calls him out, essentially saying that while his life may not be a cakewalk, CP doesn’t grant him the licence to act like a jerk. Like the other students, Richard is also relatable in some ways, each trying to find their own sense of agency on the eve of adulthood.
Even with its challenging subjects and awful outcome, Teenage Dick is a hoot. Parjad Sharifi’s set design is perfect down to the last detail. The play opens in the gym, the school’s logo and basketball lines emblazoned on the floor, sports teams’ championship banners hanging above the theatre seats. There’s a sign for the cafeteria, trophies in a glass case, a few rows of lockers, and a disco ball. Ashlie Corcoran’s capable and sensitive direction has actors coming and going from all areas of the theatre and at one point turns the audience into spectators at the election debate.
Anne Margaret, who winds up teaching Richard how to dance, struggles with more than petty high-school woes; Consiglio nicely balances the character’s hopefulness, fragility, and devastation. As Buck, Rush Quibell brings a believable presence as an all-round decent human, as comfortable in her geekiness as she is with her disability. In Walker-Ng’s deft handling, even Eddie, the jock, becomes more dimensional as the story progresses. Barrett’s pious and ambitious Clarissa is as fun to watch as Election’s Tracy Flick. As Ms. York, Lines is hilarious, trying as she might to ooze cool even if her goofy gestures induce eye rolls. Costume designer Christine Reimer nails the teacher’s outfits, notably the suit jacket overtop a dress with pumps she wears for the school assembly. (Richard’s collar, on the other hand, seems unnecessary.) Imbrosciano captures the crowd with his intensity and breadth: his Richard shifts from whiny and entitled to hurt, malicious, and full of rage. Though his character may attempt to conceal his malevolence, Imbrosciano hides nothing about his “different” abilities.
Related Articles
