REVIEW: Sea Wall at Assembly Theatre is magnificent – and soul-destroying
Sea Wall’s not a play for a large audience.
Some might remember Simon Stephens’ short, devastating monologue from its 2020 production, produced digitally in a photography studio and starring Irish actor Andrew Scott, the first actor ever to perform in Sea Wall in 2008 and the TV heartthrob of “Hot Priest” fame and astonishing emotional depth.
But only the luckiest of theatregoers will know the play from its current run, produced by Bright Young Things and Quiet Things Creative in association with One Four One collective at the teeny Assembly Theatre. The production features an engrossing Jamie Cavanagh as one of contemporary drama’s most well-written, most broken people: a photographer named Alex.
Alex has it all – a loving wife named Helen, a decent job, a father-in-law with a villa in the south of France. But it’s his daughter, Lucy, who gives any of those things any depth. She’s Helen’s “sidekick,” Alex tells us, and his “sweetheart.” Stephens paints Alex’s daughter with gossamer-thin brush strokes, gorgeously bringing the child – and the silly, tearful father who tells us about her – to life.
Given all this, it seems Alex should thrive. But he has a hole running right through the middle of his stomach, he tells us. An unmissable, terrible hole, a crater lodged in his abdomen by the worst day of his life, spent on a French beach with his family under the blazing summer sun.
I’ve often struggled with Sea Wall for what it does to its audience – it’s one of very few plays for which I feel a specific content warning would spoil the writing, but it’s also a play that demands certain people not see it. Assembly Theatre has opted not to run a content warning, an understandable choice (if one prone to scrutiny given the play’s heavy, heavy plot), but parents of any circumstance may feel the play’s themes more strongly than those without children of their own.
Director Belinda Cornish has made the smart decision to leave the Assembly space close to untouched in her take on the play – there’s a plain black wall, a smattering of photography equipment, and an electric kettle. That’s it — the text and its orator get to shine without visual fuss. As well, the Assembly team has roped off the back three rows of the already teensy audience area, meaning all in attendance, at a maximum of approximately 30 people, are within arm’s reach of Cavanagh as he acts.
And oh, does he act, conversing with his audience as if catching up with old friends or a therapist or God. Cavanagh puts on an Irish-ish accent as Alex, a trait not imposed by Stephens’ text and perhaps inviting comparison to Scott’s performance — it’s a choice unlikely to register with newcomers to the play but one which will sound familiar to those who cried over the digital production in 2020. Some of Cavanagh’s words become mealy, and some r’s are sharper than others, but it doesn’t particularly matter: the many lives of Alex – inner and outer, past and present, before and after – are so very present in that room. On the night I attended, Cavanagh performed the piece for an audience of 10 (including three critics), and selfishly, I’m grateful for it. Sea Wall is a play for as small and intimate an audience as possible, given the reluctance and quietness with which Alex bears his secrets – but it’s also a play that demands to be seen by anyone who dares listen to whatever might have caused that gaping hole in his torso.
When I first encountered Sea Wall in my bedroom at the height of lockdown in 2020, I wept for days after, watching Scott’s monologue on repeat, ripping open the wound of Alex’s heartbreak again and again.
I can now report that upon this 2023 viewing, that feeling’s still there, the awe and the pain of a magnificent performance, as well as the hunger to hear that atrocious story again, all 40 or so too-short minutes of it. Anyone who’s experienced loss is well-primed to feel similarly.
Go.
Sea Wall runs at Assembly Theatre until October 8. Tickets are available here.
Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
Aisling Murphy
Aisling is Intermission's senior editor and an award-winning arts journalist with bylines including the New York Times, Toronto Star, Globe & Mail, CBC Arts, and Maclean's. She likes British playwright Sarah Kane, most songs by Taylor Swift, and her cats, Fig and June. She was a 2024 fellow at the National Critics Institute in Waterford, CT.
LEARN MORE
iPhoto caption: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory production still by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: YPT’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is appropriately sweet
Director Thom Allison’s production embraces Charlie’s many incarnations and tones in a slick rendition that’s both fun sugar high and candy overload.
iPhoto caption: The Lion King production still by Matthew Murphy/Disney.
REVIEW: The Lion King offers audiences a cat’s-eye view of sensory delights
Twenty years after The Lion King’s last open-ended Toronto run, Julie Taymor’s directorial and design concepts remain Pride Rock-solid, spilling out from the stage into aisles, balconies, and above the crowd.
iPhoto caption: A Case for the Existence of God production still by Cylla von Tiedemann.
REVIEW: A Case for the Existence of God makes meaning of platonic intimacy
The play’s urgency and strength come from the gentle way it presents male vulnerability and platonic intimacy — for lack of which men may burn themselves, or the rest of us, to the ground.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Mathieu Taillardas.
REVIEW: Feu Mr. Feydeau! takes charming liberties with a famous playwright’s life
Feu Mr. Feydeau! is an effortlessly enjoyable historical fantasy that takes on death, the creative act, and life's bittersweet disappointments.
iPhoto caption: Dead Broke production still by Calvin Petersen.
REVIEW: Comedy-horror hybrid Dead Broke successfully spooks
While the non-horror aspects of the show lean towards the more amateur, the scares are incredibly successful. This show pulls off the theatrical horror with seeming ease: That’s reason enough to check it out for yourself.
iPhoto caption: What the Constitution Means to Me production still by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: What the Constitution Means to Me froths with urgency
Despite the surprisingly intimate nature of the material, I found myself more impressed than moved by this show. It’s one of those pieces that slowly reveals itself as theatrical premises strip away, and perhaps it’s the extra layers of distance and biography that for me kept the material at an emotional distance.
iPhoto caption: Aurora Browne for Intermission Magazine. Photo by Dahlia Katz.
“It’s a joy just to be in the room with a bunch of people,” says Browne, who returns to the stage this fall in The Bidding War at Crow’s Theatre. “I love working. I love theatre. I love the whole process. I love being at the read. I love the coffee and the rehearsal. I love the smell of the theatre. I love the feeling of opening night.”
iPhoto caption: J. Kelly Nestruck headshot courtesy of The Globe and Mail.
An exit interview with Globe and Mail theatre critic J. Kelly Nestruck
J. Kelly Nestruck has left the building. (Or at least the aisle seat.)
iPhoto caption: Photo of Annemieke Wade courtesy of TAPA.
TAPA appoints Annemieke Wade as new executive director
Wade steps into the position with an extensive background in theatre, with past roles including executive director of Roseneath Theatre and Theatre Direct and company manager of Tarragon Theatre.
iPhoto caption: Beowulf in Afghanistan graphic courtesy of GCTC.
Beowulf in Afghanistan to make world premiere at GCTC
As part of its 50th anniversary season, Ottawa’s Great Canadian Theatre Company will program the world premiere of Laurie Fyffe’s Beowulf in Afghanistan, in a production directed by Company of Fools artistic director Kate Smith.
iPhoto caption: My Name Is Lucy Barton production still by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Maev Beaty sparkles at the centre of a sparse My Name Is Lucy Barton
In Rona Munro’s adaptation, My Name Is Lucy Barton loses some bite; it’s debatable how well the idea works as a piece of theatre. That said, Beaty gleams in a rousing solo performance that showcases her range and emotional depth.
iPhoto caption: Interior Design production still by Jae Yang.
REVIEW: Interior Design sparkles with zillennial wit
Interior Design watches its Peloton-using, social media-obsessed heroines from an empathetic vantage point, holding space for these women and their problems.
UnCovered returns to Musical Stage Company with U2 and the Rolling Stones
“What you see in the audience is really the tip of a very long collaborative iceberg,” says Wong, artistic associate at Musical Stage Company and arranger, orchestrator, and music supervisor for UnCovered. “It’s a really diverse cast of voices and styles, and they’re all bringing their A-game. It’s starting to get really exciting in the room.”
Comments