By Sonia Toews
Understanding the contrasting demands of workers and bosses within a stressed economy can be like trying to get your balance on a seesaw. Brothers of the Brush attempts to do just that — and succeeds.
The New Theatre of Ottawa performs this black comic drama using a four-man cast, and paints an honest, balanced picture of the turbulent world of Irish labor disputes.
Set in Dublin, the play depicts three housepainters working on an under-the-table renovation job at the risk of losing their unemployment insurance. With lousy job conditions and substandard pay, the men are soon engaged in power struggles with their contractor and each other. To add to the stress of the situation, it’s nearly Christmas and work is hard to come by.
Oliver Becker, acclaimed as the lead in the 1996 Shaw Festival Production of The Playboy of the Western World, plays the sharp-tongued Heno, a painter who gets fed up with the poor job conditions and threatens to inform the union about the job site.
Lar, played by the Toronto-based Patrick McManus, had spent a year without work and almost lost his house, so he’ll endure any working conditions without complaint.
Jack, played by veteran New Theatre actor John Koensgen, completes the disillusioned trio of employees. Much older than the other two, Jack is caught between the contrasting opinions thrust upon him by his co-workers.
Ottawa’s Pierre Brault plays Martin, the contractor who dangles carrots — the promise of better jobs — in front of his workers in a vain effort to keep them in check.
The end of the play doesn’t provide the audience with any easy answers to the issues at the heart of a labor dispute. The production is commendable for portraying no clear-cut heroes or villains – each has his point, irreconcilable as they may be. For whether a labor dispute happens in Ireland or in Canada, the right answer can be hard to find.
In a twist of bitter irony, the labor theme of the play is strikingly parallel to the current Ontario teachers’ strike. And the objective presentation of the differing viewpoints provides natural inspiration for theatre-goers to discuss strike and labor issues.
Arthur Milner, who co-directed the production with New Theatre’s artistic director Martin Conboy, agrees that the play’s connection with Ontario’s strike situation gets the audience talking after the show.
“The timing of the production during the teacher’s strike has brought a lot of questions forward,” says Milner. “People can’t help but connect the two.”
Based on Irish playwright Jimmy Murphy’s early housepainting experiences, the production is realistic and passionately charged. Brothers of the Brush played at the Abbey Theatre and the 1993 Dublin Theatre Festival, where it won the Best New Play Award.
Milner, former artistic director of the Great Canadian Theatre Company, says the Canadian production incorporates an understandable version of an Irish-English dialect which “approaches real.”
“If it was done at regular Dubliner speed, most Canadians wouldn’t understand it,” says Milner.
He says the Irish accents took a lot of work on the part of the actors and Conboy, a former Dubliner.
The production is being performed at a recently renovated theatre space in the Chambers Building on Elgin Street.
Although Standard Life offered the space to the New Theatre for the purpose of producing Brothers in the Brush, there is the possibility of converting the room to a permanent theatre venue for independent artists.
“There’s a real need for a new theatre space,” says Milner. “Venues like the GCTC, the Arts Court and the universities are used continuously and often have to be booked over a year in advance.”