Theatre
Billy (The Days of Howling)
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
FOUR STARS
IT IS well below freezing and snowing hard but something else holds the people of this embattled Canadian community hostage: rage. Molten, corrosive rage that howls abuse at the slightest provocation, not that the three individuals in Fabien Cloutier’s play believe that what riles them personally is remotely insignificant. As Cloutier allows them to vent their exasperation – Hilary Lyon’s Admin Lady, for instance, has it in for the guy who still hasn’t put up her bulletin board – what actually manifests is the stuff of judgmental assumptions, class prejudice and social malaise.
It begins with Alice’s Mum (Rosalind Sydney) justifying her concerns for little Billy who goes to the same nursery as her daughter. The problem? Poor parenting, and as Billy’s Dad (Anthony Strachan) guzzles selfish doughnuts, it seems her suspicions are spot-on. Billy’s Dad has his own roster of targets that he lams into with dismissive contempt. Confrontations loom.
What makes this lattice of inter-related monologues so electrifying is the language. Cloutier dispenses with phoney PC niceties: those who are vastly overweight are – in Nadine Desrochers lively translation – denounced as “fat” with that word stretching beyond obesity into the hostile belief that it equals work-shy, benefit scrounging, low intelligence and feckless behaviour. Bitch, moron, retard. The characters lash out with increasingly offensive insults when they’d really like to use fists, not just against those who irritate them but about the “system” that fails them.
An unflinching cast and director (Rosie Kellagher) understand totally what Cloutier is up to, pitching crafted umbrage and frustration at a cunningly everyday level that hits us four-square – and with accents that are shockingly familiar.
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