Walter Borden and Scott Wentworth in An Orchid and Other Such Lilies and Lies | Photo by Seamus Easton
I stewed over how to even begin my review, let alone do this play justice. In a way, An Orchid and Other Such Lilies and Lies, presented by Dandelion Theatre, is quite a simple, contained piece. Two actors, one conversation. But where they take each other, and us, is teeming with memory and emotion. I want to be deliberate and decisive, but I hesitate. I’m not sure how much sense this will make to you, but the play is so delicate, I’m afraid of tearing its wings apart by handling it too clumsily. (A butterfly, you see, features in a quietly devastating and enigmatic bit of imagery that still haunts me as I write this.)
Two elderly men in a car, driving through the desert, kvetching relentlessly as their aching, tired bodies recall their life’s journey and anticipate the end. It’s revealed pretty early on in this heartbreaking portrait of a fraught yet formidable friendship that they will not be returning from this road trip, a choice they’ve made to go out on their own terms. And they’ve brought a bunch of drugs—which figure into a truly hilarious bit of hallucinatory comedy. In tow, they’ve also got ancient yearbooks to enumerate their clan—scattered, withered, lost—and seven decades of emotional baggage.
Max Ackerman’s deeply affectionate production is somehow both entirely honest and highly stylized, designed to enhance the convincing humanity and dreamlike quality of D. Halpern’s text. A curving backdrop of white sheets are a canvas for Kevan Cress’s ambient projections suggesting the barren landscape, sky and ghostly fragments of shared memory. Their teenage selves figure here too in a video montage that serves as a nostalgic opening title sequence—an atmospheric prelude that plants, in our minds, images of their youth to take with us on the road with them.
The centrepiece of Sahana Dharmaraj and Cress’s set, thrusting out at us, is a white foam and plastic rendering of the front end of car. It isn’t meant to be even remotely realistic; it’s an austere vessel, because everyone involved knows the true centrepiece is Walter Borden and Scott Wentworth, a beautiful duo embodying Halpern’s well-observed mediation on grief, guilt and the undulations of a long life. There is cruelty here, and compassion too.
It’s a challenge to express what makes this so special without spoiling the specifics or sounding generic. There are the familiar beats you’d expect from a road-trip story and the unpacking of a friendship—genuine camaraderie, petty squabbling, bitter accusations and painful confessions peppered with wisdom and insight. Ackerman begins his director’s note by stating “Orchid is a very unconventional play.” But I don’t think it is, not really. This isn’t radical, absurd or elliptical; it is grounded and articulate. Sure, it’s a lyrical and surreal play and, as such, operates under a different set of conventions than a kitchen sink drama, but equally well worn and reliable.
In the details of this, Halpern, Ackerman, Borden, Wentworth and the design team achieve some intimate, funny and devastating theatrical magic. These men are exasperating, goofy, loving and so entirely real to me. Borden and Wentworth’s dynamic is deeply compelling, their history revealing itself in a multitude of quirks and loaded glances. I was especially intrigued by the fluctuating nuances of their relationship, subverting binaries and defying easy classification.
Both men give solid, vulnerable performances, but there is a rather lengthy tangent Borden delivers at the end that all but took my breath away. The writing is exquisite and Borden’s handling of it is truly astonishing—a measured, patient, cumulative poignance that resonates.
I can’t stress enough how very special An Orchid and Other Such Lilies and Lies is. Being staged at the cozy Red Sandcastle Theatre, it is also an opportunity to see two titans of the Canadian theatre scene flex their craft up close and personal.
An Orchid and Other Such Lilies and Lies
November 15 to 23, 2025
Red Sandcastle Theatre
(922 Queen St. E)
90 minutes
Walter Borden and Scott Wentworth in An Orchid and Other Such Lilies and Lies | Photos by Seamus Easton