Bonnie Duff in “This Feels Like The End”, Photo by Barry McCluskey
Presented by Theatre Aurinko
Blending Finish folklore, grade school science, Christian rhetoric, conspiracy theories and set in a very bleak Toronto, this heartfelt and ambitious play sees five characters facing an eerie cosmic anomaly. The sun has suddenly disappeared. The world is plunged into darkness, but things don’t quite add up. The earth isn’t freezing over and the moon is still visible, which gives This Feels Like The End a distinctly fable-like quality.
As Robin, a first or second grader, Jasmine Case is the most energetic presence on stage. She bounds about, obsessed with bottling the air she’s convinced is about to run out. Tara Koehler’s Sandy, a psychologist, brings a palpable empathy to her scenes. Landon Nesbitt has endearing moments as Jamie, spiralling into a lonely depression and susceptible to persuasive ideas and personalities. Cameron Laurie’s religious zealot, Eric, is gentle and charismatic yet vaguely unsettling; he’s so high on his own supply, so convinced of his righteousness, he put me on edge. And there is Bonnie Duff’s determined Emmi, a journalist who returns to her native Finland, sure that the culture’s mythos and experience with long periods of darkness, holds some answer to their current, enigmatic situation.
Duff also wrote the script, which is sincere and exploratory, bouncing between its characters and ideas with guileless enthusiasm. Director Michelle Blight tries to inject some fanciful visuals and propulsive momentum into the solid yet banal scene structure. Jake Schindler scores transitions with an urgent beat. Meredith Wolting’s scenic design and Mathilda Kane’s lighting conspire to give us some whimsical shadow puppet vignettes that heighten the mythic vibes of the story.
And I wish it all resonated more deeply with me.
Though the looming darkness is a baleful presence, though characters articulate our human need to fit the unexplainable into our worldview, though the ensemble cast is earnest and committed… this ultimately fell flat for me. It’s not even a distinct failing of the production that I can identify. It just didn’t click. Though it absolutely deserves the opportunity to click for you if any of the above intrigues you.
Shout out to an iconic moment that did thrill me: the lead up to and delivery of Duff’s pugnacious “so why did the sun go out?” is such an perfect mic-drop argument capper, I wanted to applaud it on the spot.
