Photo provided by the company
My last show of 2024 was Phil Rickaby’s festive and spooky solo show, adapted from his audio drama. (I haven’t listened yet, but plan to check it out as I think it might be a more ideal format for this piece.) It Sees You When You’re Sleeping takes its cues from a few familiar sources. There are nods to Poltergeist, Child’s Play, The Haunting of Hill House—these might not even be especially intentional, but the echoes added to the sense of storytelling tradition—a key thematic element of this deceptively silly little tale about a father contending with a malevolently sentient Elf on the Shelf doll.
Rickaby takes his time with this shaggy dog story, luxuriating in mundane details, gently allowing us to get cozy with this single father and his very young daughter, Susan. Storytelling is a huge part of their Christmas tradition and, much to his chagrin, Susan, developing tastes of her own (informed by the ubiquity of retail Christmas culture) has fixated on the popular Elf on the Shelf doll this year. After much dragging of feet, he eventually relents, opening their small world up to sinister forces.
There are a few playful pokes at Pinterest that will likely appeal to folks who are distrustful of algorithmically-informed creativity.
As written, this is full of insightful details rendered with casual grace. Rickaby has a natural warmth that makes the anecdotal vibes work well enough, though he does not seem to be entirely comfortable with this as a stage performance. Neither he nor director joey o’dael have found the most fully dynamic theatrical shape for it.
The simple set-up is fine—a Christmas tree on one side and a small cabinet on the other, where Rickaby works with the elf doll and other props. Some of the business feels a little awkward. The elf itself, though properly cute and festive, undermines so much of his eerie narration. The menacing body language and facial expressions he describes (perhaps all in his imagination?) lose their imaginative power as we look at this limp plaything in his hands. I speculate this threatening aspect might be significantly more resonant in audio.
Susan’s increasingly evil drawings are a great touch and very funny as he and the audience contemplate the horrific implications. The disembodied voices are certainly creepy, though it’s jingling bells, generally considered so playful and comforting, that are a particularly disquieting sound cue. There are also some very intense moments where the audience is blasted with coloured backlight, heightening our anxiety as we’re forced to squint through the glare.
So much of the story’s episodic build is delightfully silly, riffing on the inherent creep factor of dolls. Running throughout, with increasing resonance, is a genuine emotionality. Both father and daughter are still grieving the loss of a wife and mother. Rickaby doesn’t dwell; after acknowledging it directly, he lets the emotional weight hang in the air around us he wrestles quietly with his pain each time her spectre is raised.
His character assures us that he is a rational, grounded, skeptical sort of person. And yet, here he is: faced with inexplicable, eldritch machinations. The finale—where he, Susan and the elf are lost in a strange new normal—is effectively unsettling. Reaching beyond the semi-comic ghastliness of the situation, it seems to hold a chilling truth—providing us with a haunting glimpse into parental fear as an unhealthy new relationship develops. Usurped of his position—as protector, provider and role-model—he loses all agency. As deliciously goofy as the terrors are, something real and disquieting lurks beneath the whimsy here.
It Sees You When You’re Sleeping
running December 19 to 22, 2024
Red Sandcastle Theatre (922 Queen Street East)
running time: 90 minutes (no intermission)
Photo provided by the company