THEATRE REVIEW

APRIL 2026 | Volume 262

 

Here’s a (relatively) new company that deserves our attention. Black Box Theatre exploded onto the scene last summer with an excellent production of The Play That Goes Wrong, a beast of a farce requiring a large cast, collapsing set, and precise comic timing. (See my review: https://www.vancouverplays.com/review-granville-island-play-goes-wrong-25.shtml.) Black Box is actor/producer/playwright James Barclay and actor/director Tracey Labrosse.

Barclay has written their current play, Wonderwall, and stars in it along with Labrosse, who also directs. At its heart Wonderwall is a gentle comedy blended with some darker elements. The play and production largely succeed, but what’s special is Barclay’s performance as the brain-damaged central character, Peter.

We meet Peter, a man perhaps in his thirties, offering to mow lawns for $5 when he comes to the home of teenage Charlotte (Marta Bilous) and her mother Tina (Labrosse), whose lives are falling apart. Tina has just kicked her husband Scott (Omer Aubin) out of the house. Alcoholic Scott has gotten in debt to the mob and is probably going to jail. In any case Charlotte and Tinaare losing their home.

To try to get some money, Charlotte goes into the lawnmowing business with Peter and they become tight friends. When it turns out that Peter’s mother, Anne (Carrie Hunter), has early dementia, soon-to-be-homeless ex-nurse Tina and Charlotte move in with them. Tina will take care of Anne in exchange for their lodging.

Things get grim when Scott decides to testify against his criminal friends. He’ll get no jail time but will have to go into protective custody, and he tells Charlotte and Tina that they’ll have to go with him.

For the first 20 minutes Wonderwall feels like a YA play about the bonding of two outsiders, Charlotte and Peter (who is older than her but, due to his injury, acts younger). But once the parent characters’ plots kick in, the play fills out in interesting ways. Still, at the centre of the drama are the two needy kids.

Barclay’s Peter is a wonderful performance of a lovely character. The victim of a car accident that killed his father, Peter is a fascinating combination of wariness, naivety and literal-mindedness that is often very funny. He can’t seem to look others in the eye and speaks with a unique rhythm and intonation. He loves his mother (a love that is reciprocated) and comes to love Charlotte, too. There’s a danger these days that an actor who does not have a particular handicap will get slammed for portraying someone who does. But I can’t imagine anyone with Peter’s brain injury being able to play such a character on stage. Barclay’s writing and performance of Peter are so positive, without being saintly or sentimental, and so infused with integrity that he deserves nothing but bravos.

Charlotte is written with a different kind of complexity. A somewhat bratty, narcissistic teen, she yells at her mother, tries to cheat Peter at first, and careens through the other characters’ lives with excessive self-regard. But her home life hasn’t been ideal and her bonding with Peter makes up for a lot. Playing younger than her own age, Bilous does a good job but could be a lot less shouty.

I wasn’t sure about Hunter’s Anne, whose blitheness doesn’t always read as demented. But having recently played a character suffering from dementia myself, I know that there are as many manifestations of dementia as there are people suffering from it. Ultimately, we judge Anne by the care she takes of her son, and her protective mother’s love is convincing. 

Aubin’s Scott is just a dick, although he appears to genuinely love his daughter. He’s appropriately scary, too, but Barclay could afford to write the character with a little more dimension. Labrosse’s Tina is all about trying to cope – with her husband, her kid, her circumstances – and she does well. I was again impressed with Labrosse’s confident direction. If she would only turn down Charlotte just a notch.

The play and production of Wonderwall (I’m not crazy about the title) are very good signs of a new young company and playwright making their way into Vancouver’s tricky theatrical ecosystem. I look forward to their next show, The Movie Star in August, written by Barclay and directed by Labrosse. I very much hope James Barclay casts himself again.

 

 

 

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