Malik Suleman, Seth Guillemette and Chris Maclean | Photo by Chuyang Yang
Presented by O in the Wall Productions
This show’s themes and narrative concerns are described very articulately on the Fringe website. The dialogue of Patient 0: A Love Story, written by Garshasb “Gary” Siasi, is similarly overwrought. To quote Peter Griffin on The Godfather: It insists upon itself. It strives, rather self-consciously, to be: stylish, cynical, sentimental, brutally violent, and deeply thoughtful about trauma, guilt, regret and loss. It’s all very heavy, except when it’s trying to be darkly absurd. Both modes are too clumsily insistent and fall flat.
The opening scene reminded me of the sort of transgressive, darkly funny content you might find on Adult Swim. A romantic proposal in Paris is cut short by an over-the-top double homicide set to canned laughter. I dig black humour, but I have no taste for the edgelord vibes I sensed here and throughout.
Siasi’s direction is very moody and he frequently employs a cinematic soundtrack to bolster the intensity of scenes. I understood the varied tone he was going for and, to some extent, he succeeds in crafting a palpable atmosphere, though the story itself takes a while to come into focus.
We see Billy (Malik Suleman) and Tommy (Seth Roy Guillemette) carry out a series of contract killings that are intercut with meditative monologues from The Writer (Christopher Maclean), who keeps getting interrupted by rude demands for coffee from our assassin brothers. (It’s a whole thing I won’t get into.)
Sharon Rae Ryan, as a enigmatic motherly figure (with strange preternatural qualities explained later), and Julia Skutlesky, as the woman killed at the beginning, do the best they can with relatively thankless roles. Functioning as tragic plot points for world-building or motivation, neither are afforded any agency or dimension.
For the longest time, I couldn’t tell if the brothers were human, if they existed in the same reality as other characters, as all their interactions and dialogue are cryptic and ambiguous. Tommy’s propeller beanie kept throwing me too, hinting at some significance I could never quite parse. Even when they monologue at us, it’s hard to see the situation clearly, until the finale where that clarity makes it all seem a bit silly. Some folks might find the heartfelt yelling, table slamming and barrage of violence convincing, but it read as histrionic and cringy to me.
This has abundant and ambitious intention, but Siasi needs to hone his writing to allow authentic human insights to better inform the downbeat edginess. He could also give some concentrated attention to at least the main woman of the story. Though the writing was too self-serious for me, both Suleman and Guillemette, the most nuanced, were quite compelling. Suleman in particular has distinctive presence and charisma.
