Review: Icemen is the best of local theatre
Theatre Burlington’s slick and thrilling production of Vern Thiessen’s riveting play is a triumph not to be missed.
As edge-of-your-seat theatre goes, it’s hard to top Vern Thiessen’s Icemen. It’s a story of crime and consequences where the line between justice and guilt are blurred the deeper you delve into the script. Theatre Burlington’s staging of this thriller plumbs the depths of Thiessen’s drama, and the result is a professional-grade masterclass not to be missed.
Set inside a remote fishing cabin on a chilly winter night in Simcoe County, Icemen opens with an ominous pre-show of two men hauling a third, bound and gagged, into a centre-stage chair. The pair are working class, but their captive is well to do. They tie him to the chair and leave him alone until the lights come up.
As the action starts, and the pair return, we learn they are brothers Joe (James Vezina) and Rennie (Brian Melanson) who work as ice harvesters for the township. Venturing out on the frozen bay and cutting out slabs of ice for use in the ice trade during the Great Depression, is backbreaking work.
Their prisoner is wealthy businessman Frederick Forsyth, dubbed F.F. (Gregory Flis), a preeminent magnate of the ice trade. The brothers, having suffered injustice and injury at the hands of Forsyth’s business, have abducted him to seize enough ransom to escape their lives as harvesters, and the long arm of the law.
Of course, nothing goes according to plan.
From the outset, Joe is the brash plotter, convinced their plan will lead them to greener pastures. Loyal brother Rennie, meanwhile, nurses a mangled arm, an unfortunate casualty of Forsyth’s relentless working conditions. But the more we learn more about their unfortunate plight, the more they earn our sympathy and invite us to root for their cause.
But when Rennie leaves, and Joe removes the gag from the captive Forsyth, a dangerous game of cat and mouse begins. Both men are leaders in their own right, separated only by fortune's circumstance. A dialogue opens, and each reveals secrets about their past. Soon, they find common ground as victims of the excesses of capitalism, and the gulf between them narrows.
But the truce is both short-lived, and a ruse.
We know that Joe and Rennie can't escape justice, and Forsythe will undoubtedly exact retribution for his kidnapping … but only if any of them live that long. And it’s that question that ominously hangs over the play’s tight, 90-minute runtime, holding us fast up to the explosive end.
First commissioned by Theatre By the Bay, Thiessen wrote the piece knowing little about the Simcoe region or the town of Barrie. Yet, diving into the historical record of ice harvesters, the playwright fashioned a story of both love and revenge as well as how industry and wealth separate people into the haves and have nots.
An acclaimed playwright, Thiessen hails from western Canada, with a body of work that revolves around memory, history, and belief. With Icemen, many of these themes come alive in an extremely taut script. What’s more, the uniquely provincial setting alongside fundamental questions of conflict and class, make for a deeply prescient story about the present day.
Director Tim Denis, buoyed by set designer Graham Clements and lighting designer Bree Mclean-Roberts, has fashioned a space that feels authentically decrepit and cloistered while giving his actors plenty of room to play. Deep shadows and muted colours paint a broad swath across the stage, further blurring the story's grey areas of right and wrong.
With only three characters, Icemen lives and dies by the strength of its cast. And for this production, Denis has gathered an extraordinary ensemble. As Rennie, local actor Brian Melanson, recently seen in West End Studio Theatre’s 12 Angry Men, deftly conveys wounded sensitivity and harsh loyalty. He follows Joe’s every directive without question, even as he struggles to see the implications of their plot past his own pain.
Veteran performer and playwright Gregory Flis has the tough job of portraying the erstwhile antagonist of the piece. But Flis plays Forsyth (F.F.) as a man trapped by the machinations of the very industry that has made him his fortune. He pleads to the brothers not just for release, but to accept the harsh inevitability of the capitalist machine that has trapped them, all while he continues his attempts at escape.
But the centrepiece of Icemen is James Vezina’s portrayal of Joe. Last seen as the restrained and grieving Michael in Dundas Little Theatre’s Late Company, Vezina owns the stage with fiery aplomb, embodying Joe as a fierce animal unleashed. Veering from merriment to menace to desperate vulnerability, he’s a tour-de-force who skulks, struts, jumps, and careens with mesmerizing intensity. It is one of the best local performances I’ve seen in years.
Community theatre is sometimes given short shrift, especially when compared to larger productions by professional houses. But in staging an acclaimed Canadian play, produced with a calibre that rivals any professional show, Theatre Burlington delivers a remarkable opening to their newest season.
It’s an artistic triumph that every local theatre lover must see.
NEED TO KNOW
Icemen
Presented by Theatre Burlington
Oct. 2, 3, 9, and 10
Theatre Burlington (Drama Centre)
2311 New St., Burlington
Tickets here or at the box office: 905-639-7700.
