Neither a recent refurbishment nor a growing clientele of young urban sophisticates can displace the storied history of Vancouver’s Waldorf Hotel. Since 1947, the squat two-storey complex on the corner of Hastings and Maclean has served as a home, a waypoint, and a signpost for all the in-betweens and not-quite-theres passing through Vancouver. It’s a place where stories overlap, but are never fully told, where “friends” always come in air quotes, and where everyone is on a need to know basis.
In Squidamisu Theatre’s current Fringe Festival production of George F. Walker’s Suburban Motel cycle, this ragged history plays a starring role. Mounted entirely in one of the Waldorf Hotel’s guest rooms before a tiny audience of seventeen, Squidamisu’s iteration of Suburban Motel revels in the legacy of its stage and makes good on the text’s deep commitment to a kind of gritty, urban realism
Lit using only with the room’s fixtures, and relying completely on the sounds of the street and bar ruckus below for ambience, the cycle tells six distinct, but vaguely overlapping stories of loss, desperation, crime, and betrayal.
In “The End of Civilization,” which I was fortunate enough to attend on its opening night, Henry and Lily have lost it all. Out of work and low on funds (thanks to Henry’s recent firing), they’re forced to trundle their two children off to Lily’s sister’s house while they bed down in a seedy motel. Henry spends his days desperately looking for work in a world he can’t stand; a world filled with greedy, profit-grubbing bosses and the “poor bastards” forced to kiss their feet, trading in their principles for a crack at what little money there is to go around.
Meanwhile Lily, with nerves and patience wearing thin, turns to sex work after befriending Sandy, the razor sharp but still gentle prostitute who lives in the next suite. Add to the mix a string of violent crimes and a mismatched pair of homicide detectives and you end up with a wonderful, claustrophobic, tremendously well-acted drama shot through with clever laughs, blistering tension, and a truly noir sensibility.
It likely goes without saying that pulling this all off in a tiny, sweltering (seriously, if you go, hold on to your program. You’ll need it to keep cool) hotel room is no mean feat. Cycle producer Richard Stroh, who also appears in “The End of Civilization” as buttoned-down detective Max, however, says he thrived on the challenge.
“People,” says Stroh, “will often do ‘Risk Everything’ and ‘Problem Child,’ or maybe they’ll do ‘Problem Child’ and ‘End of Civilization,’ ones that are a little more popular. We said ‘No. we’re gonna do all six.”
Working from Walker’s only staging direction–that all six shows must take place in the same run-down motel room–Stroh, Associate Producer Matthew Kowalchuck, and their team of directors made an absolute commitment to a hyper-realist production. “Let’s make it so it’s dogma,” he said, ”where we’re using the reality of one space, one seedy hotel room–and that’s your set. You gotta deal with the elements, the noise, the club downstairs. And that’s when we thought of the Waldorf.”
Such a bold staging choice is certainly a gamble, but for Stroh and crew, it pays off handsomely. As Max grills Henry on his erratic behaviour, sirens scream down Hastings Street; as tensions mount and emotions reach a boiling point, the room grows hot and humid from the crowding of bodies; as Henry confronts the painful reality of an economy more concerned with executive profits than the well being of workers, we’re reminded of Vancouver’s own economic injustices which, only a few blocks away, rear their heads.
These resonances between Walker’s words and the performance site anchor the production’s almost single-minded commitment to realism. As Stroh puts it, “we wanted to create an entity that has a prime directive: simplicity, real space, real lighting. In the realism of Walker, do the text respect.” In this regard “The End of Civilization” succeeds admirably.
But, in the true spirit of the Waldorf, even this commitment to realism isn’t necessarily what it seems. After all, the show ultimately shirks the voyeuristic mode of “peering in,” often deployed as a realist trope, in favor of a decidedly more exhibitionistic presentation. As audience members, we’re not asked to sneak glances through drawn shades at something “actually” happening. Rather, we’re directly inside the suite, perched on the stage, implicated in the action. In this way, we are constantly alerted to the fact that, despite the hyperrealist trappings, the ensemble is performing for an assembled group, and that group is itself performing the role of audience.
This tacit nod to the inescapability of performance resonates wonderfully with Walker’s text, making visceral the identity play, secrecy, and denials at its centre. In Stroh’s words, Walker’s characters are “always on a show. With the detectives, we’re constantly playing games and tricks with the people we’re dealing with. We’re constantly lying to people, pretending to be people that we’re not.”
The rest of the cast is caught in similar circuits of deceit. Henry must perform modesty and gratitude for his would-be bosses, even as he smolders against them, and Lily must play to male desires if she is to preserve the illusion of sanctity in which she swaddles her children.
Ultimately, “The End of Civilization” becomes a bewildering game of smoke and mirrors in which everyone, even the audience, is caught. Lucky for us, it’s a game that entertains, entices, and shines with outstanding performances. “The End of Civiliation,” and the rest of the Suburban Motel cycle, is sure to be one of the highlights of this year’s Fringe.
Get showtimes and details for Suburban Motel at the Fringe Festival website. Shows until September 16, limited seating.
