no good reason

Didactic art can be such a drag.

Plays are, I find, particularly trying.

All those people, working so hard, just to push through some simplistic, and frequently obvious message -without a whiff of subtlety, insight, or actual passion.
Reminds me of those mini-plays we'd put on in elementary school: SMOKING IS BAD. DON'T STEAL. HELP YOUR PARENTS.

Oh brother. I'd like to think adult audiences are a bit past the preaching, and ready for something a bit more challenging.

So would Leslie O'Dell, it turns out.

O'Dell is the director of No Good Reason, a two-man play opening at the Young Centre November 1st.

In it, two soldiers who have survived World War One recount their experiences and work to try to find a way to live with their wounds -both outer and inner.

"We're trying to resist the obvious or sentimental, or direct, striaght-forward peachy themes and go for something tougher,", she explains, "something more dangerous, and raw, where we back off of that simplistic message sort of thing, and say, 'okay, yes, war is bad, why do we as a species keep doing it?'"

From listening to the play's accompanying CD, Waiting There for Me, or examining playwright Stephen Baetz's work, it's easy to see how timely a piece No Good Reason is.

"Here we are, as Canadians, again, watching the price be paid by another generation of young people", she says with a sigh, "We call it the 'first' World War, but back then, they called it the Great War, the war to end all wars. I mean, what is it about our species that will, despite our capacity for caring and love and healing ... what is it in us that keeps us coming back to violence?"

O'Dell is certainly no stranger to examining the urge to kill in the theatre. She's been involved in productions of Henry IV (Revolt in England and Revenge in France), Henry VI -Parts One and Two, Titus Andronicus, Troilus and Cressida and Richard III (for the Stratford Festival).

While the challenge of re-creating battle scenes has always been a concern for directors, O'Dell figures her time directing some of Shakespeare's more bloody war-themed epics has actually endowed her with an appreciation for theatrical simplicity.

"We're exploring something where poetry and music sit together, where the intention is not to recreate or recapture. That's one of the marvellous things about theatre. It can do what film and TV can't. It can be unreal. Language takes on a simplicity and beauty on a stage. When an actor turns and speaks to an audience, from Shakespeare to a modern monologue, it packs a punch. And you haven't spent a penny on special effects."

What with soldiers coming back in body bags and televised news every night, it would seem war doesn't need to be dramatized anymore in order for it to be a reality. And it's not one that's going away anytime soon, unfortunately.

Still, the team behind No Good Reason needed to draw on a number of different experiences and influences to come up with a truly viable examiniation of the human instinct to war.

"We're drawing upon all of the cultural ways that we position war in our society, from World War Two films, to the heroic Rambo figure, through to the really brutal and thought-provoking historical examinations - not only Shakespeare, but as far back as the Greek world, with things like Euripides' Trojan Women."

But the play, says O'Dell, is far from being a downer.

"The ultimate statement of play is very affirming", she says, "It's about the quiet courage it takes to endure."

No Good Reason opens at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts on November 1 and runs until November 10.

For more information, go to www.youngcentre.ca or redsockscompany.com.