Istvan Dugalin ➤

Sarah McVie, Tony Perpuse & Madeleine Brown in Syndrome | Photo by Will Innes (Peach Juice Creative)

Here’s a statement that I would never have imagined myself writing down: I wish I had seen Syndrome with a theatre full of teenagers. Generally, out in the world, I find teenagers, en masse, a bit insufferable. They’re people though, and back in the day, I was one. I can also understand that George F. Walker’s play, presented by Theatre Direct in association with The Assembly Theatre, isn’t really for me. It doesn’t quite hold up to adult scrutiny, which is why I’d be curious to see how it fares under the attentive eyes of folks a third my age.

Set in an art classroom that has been absolutely ravaged—a very convincing chaos of overturned tables, stools and art supplies crafted by scenic designer Amanda Wong—a teacher tries to pacify, then connect to two angry teenagers. Well, one angry teenager and a concerned hanger-on. Over the course of a real-time hour, we understand how this tense situation developed, what it means, and get a hopeful glimpse into the future.

Kyle (Tony Perpuse) is the one who created this mess before us. Is his “syndrome” to blame? Perpuse can play quite young and compellingly embody a teenager’s sullen despondency punctuated by hostile outbursts. Jenny (Madeleine Brown) threw me a bit. I would consider adolescent at least a decade out of Brown’s range. When she first pops up into the scene, I thought she was portraying a teacher. As the reality sunk in, that she is Kyle’s peer, I was rather baffled, though I did eventually fall into a precarious suspension of disbelief. She has such persuasively awkward body language and facial expressions and can effectively channel a teenager’s angsty, goading energy. Still, in the role, she’s undeniably… surreal.

I just saw Sarah McVie in a very similar environment! This feels like a sort of companion piece to Coal Mine Theatre’s Eureka Day. Her portrayal of Ami is funny and endearing, assertive enough to register the delicate balance of empathy and authority necessary for this woman’s job, though she doesn’t have quite enough to work with. Walker hasn’t given us much insight into her psyche. As a middle-aged adult, I was searching for something there to properly ground me.

Walker has obviously anchored this to a teenager’s perspective, but even there I think it falters. Its tropes are rather old fashioned. A valiant, patient teacher trying to reach the angry youth who are just so misunderstood! Kyle’s big issue is that the adults in his life just won’t be straight with him. He tore this art classroom apart because the teacher only wanted to discuss art and not, y’know, the state of the world.

I guess I can vibe with that on some level. My problem comes from how naive the specifics are, even for its intended audience. Kyle and Jenny are well past puberty and can be relatively informed—if they choose to pay attention, which the play suggests they do. They have access to the internet, for instance. Walker has them challenging Ami to engage with them about such important, Big and Capitalized issues as the Pandemic, War and Poverty, indicating that they simply don’t have access to hard, peer-reviewed information.

Ami looks stuff up on the internet for them. (It’s a little odd she needs to whip out a laptop, since all this would be available on her phone.) Though there is some rather thoughtful discourse about the challenges posed to inner-city health care workers, most of the specifics that Walker provides sound like Wikipedia entries about the above topics. Surely Kyle and Jenny, with access to the internet, have gone down far more specific and detailed rabbit holes than that. They’ve expressed awareness that the world is falling the fuck apart. They would have been exposed to such phenomena as Climate Change, the Manosphere, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, they’d be sexting and doomscrolling and all up in podcasts about everything under the sun.

This could have gone to far more specific, nuanced and uncomfortable places, but it wants to maintain a sort of Disney Channel veneer over the scenario.

It felt a little out of touch to me. An educator locking two teenagers in a room unsupervised? That seems somewhat absurd given the heightened precautions of today’s educational institutions. The violence of the situation is handled with kid gloves I imagine even teenagers would find lacking in visceral urgency. There’s a daunting mess, sure, but I think there could be some hint that violence has consequences beyond some scattered art supplies.

I’m no longer a teenager, though, so maybe this hits harder for them than I imagine.

Despite my scepticism, the characters and performances are sincere and endearing. Perpuse and McVie are especially compelling when just staring at each other in a tense mutual challenge. Lisa Marie Diliberto’s direction is also dynamic and naturalistic. The choice to have a box of very real Tim-bits really elevated the verisimilitude. And the final moment between Perpuse and Brown is very sweet.

Syndrome
March 3 to 15, 2026
The Assembly Theatre
(1479 Queen Street West)
60 minutes

Tony Perpuse & Madeleine Brown in Syndrome | Photo by Will Innes (Peach Juice Creative)