Clinging to the ledge

Theatre Calgary’s 7 Stories is funny and penetrating

I often judge a play by how much I talk about it in the hours even days following the event. Using this barometer Theatre Calgary’s current production 7 Stories is a definite hit. It’s a winning combination of wonderfully comic yet profound writing excellent acting and brilliant directing by Dean Paul Gibson.

Playwright Morris Panych (who happens to be Calgary born) created the play 20 years ago. In previous interviews Theatre Calgary’s artistic director Dennis Garnhum has professed a love of Panych’s work. This is the third Panych play Theatre Calgary has produced in the past four seasons.

The action of the 90-minute show takes place on the seventh-story ledge of an apartment building. The play’s original set designer Ken MacDonald has created a backdrop reminiscent of a René Magritte surrealist painting: a blue sky with fluffy white clouds drifting across it. Punctuating the skyscape are seven windows all of which open throughout the course of the play to reveal the zany inhabitants who occupy the building’s seventh floor.

The play’s central character — The Man (Peter Anderson who originated the role in 1989) — dressed in his black suit topped with a bowler hat could be any of Calgary’s many corporate minions trapped on the daily mundane treadmill of existence. He has seven identical hats seven pairs of shoes and finds order in his life by the way in which the week is arbitrarily divided into seven days. When this order is shaken the uncertainty and confusion drive him up to the seventh story of the building to get some perspective on his surroundings and ultimately his existence. He gets more than he bargains for as each window opens revealing an inhabitant crazier than the last. And he’s stuck on the ledge trying to make sense of it all.

Most of the people he encounters are occupied with trying to gain some grander purpose in their lives whether it be through redecorating an apartment 18 times in a never-ending quest to create the perfect piece of art or those in search of the ultimate party or one person whose mission it is to convert everyone to religion at whatever the cost. As one dour nurse explains it they’re all just “looking for reasons not to jump.”

One character points out: “Jumping is the only way to go these days otherwise you run the risk of protracted survival.” By letting the audience peek into the lives of the different characters and through poking fun at the craziness and silliness that exist in our world Panych gives plenty of reasons to lighten up and realize that stepping back from the ledge remains the best option.

The entire cast is terrific but Christopher Hunt steals the show with his portrayal of a neurotic psychiatrist who warns The Man of the conspiracy at play outside his very window. In fact on opening night Hunt’s performance garnered a round of spontaneous applause; it was just that good.

Many of the exchanges remind me of a Bud Abbott and Lou Costello routine. The comic dialogue comes at a rapid-fire pace so there’s no room for any micro-naps; otherwise you’re guaranteed to miss something crucial. But beneath all the comedy is an undercurrent of true profundity. Even if you just sit back relax and don’t try extracting any life lessons from 7 Stories Panych’s observations about humanity will penetrate your consciousness.

The voice of “common sense” comes in the character of the 100-year-old woman. While all of her neighbours manufacture situations to lend the world greater meaning she finds meaning just by living. She tells The Man a story about going to the Louvre Museum to see the Mona Lisa and finding a crowd of people who were disappointed by the painting’s small size. People she says expect something greater. Her story seems to be a parable of life. As the police spotlight pins The Man against the building he asks her advice and she tells him to let the wind take him upwards and fly.

I’m sure one can interpret her cryptic words in many ways but I choose to see it as “Just let life happen as you can never know what lies ahead. Don’t predetermine your destiny.” In my opinion wise advice to live by.