THE
DISHWASHERS
by Morris Panych
Arts Club, Granville Island
February 17 - March 12
$27.50 - 35.50
604.280.3311
www.ticketmaster.ca
www.artsclub.com
You know you’re famous when you enter the pantheon of
one-namers. Morris Panych has cracked that barrier, at least
locally. Like Cher or Shaq, he’s just Morris, easily our
most successful all-around theatre artist.
Always an edgy actor—though he doesn’t act much
anymore—he’s now increasingly in demand as a director,
here and in Ontario, of plays and opera. But playwriting has
put Morris on the world stage. His best works, 7
Stories, Vigil and The
Overcoat, are dark comic fables, theatrically innovative
stories of little men at the end of their ropes, contemplating
the meaning of life. The Dishwashers shares some of those qualities.
But this newest play is not the one Morris will be remembered
for.
We’re in the grungy basement of an upscale restaurant,
the lair of the dishwashers, rendered in lovingly greasy detail
by designer Ken MacDonald, complete with working sink and realistically
crusty dishes. I swear I could smell them. Dressler (Stephen
E. Miller), emperor of this domain, and Moss (Shawn Macdonald),
an old smoker gasping his last breaths, have been there forever.
Emmett (Ted Cole), the new guy, has been hired to replace the
dying Moss. Having made and lost a fortune, Emmett bitterly laments
being reduced to what he sees as the crappiest of all jobs.
The central question is whether dishwashing is pointless, demeaning
work, a last resort to be escaped as quickly as possible. Or
whether, as Dressler argues, it has a noble purpose as the foundation
of the elegant world upstairs: “Pubic hair in the lobster
bisque is just the sort of thing we want to avoid.” More
important, Dressler insists, it has its own intrinsic value.
Embrace it as he has and it can make life meaningful.
This debate is interesting as far as it goes, but mostly it
goes around in circles. Played with comic gusto, Stevie Miller’s
Dressler preaches a gospel of low expectations, and with an eye
on Moss, invites existential resignation: “Work, that’s
all there is. Work, death, the rest is a detour.” Emmett
attempts half-heartedly to buy in, even organizing a pathetic
union drive, but gets out as soon as he can. Though Ted Cole’s
relentlessly sarcastic performance makes Emmett hard to like,
isn’t he right? Doesn’t the job suck? Maybe, but
the same arguments are made over and over without any real plot
attached.
Departing from his usual style, Morris as both writer and director
grounds these characters in the banality of realism. In The
Overcoat,
a group of men at sewing machines brilliantly mime their work
in chorus to the roar of classical music. Here men literally
haul real, clattering dishes in racks. 7
Stories ends with a
moment of theatrical magic when a man leaps from a building and
flies. There’s no magic here and no leaps. The
Dishwashers never flies.
Jerry Wasserman
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