The Woods. Courtyard Theatre.

First produced in 1977, David Mamet’s narrative-starved folk-horror fairy tale about relationships, power struggles, and existential musings, The Woods, gets a reworking at The Courtyard Theatre from director Lydia McNulty. Anticipate a veritable surfeit of pared-back Mamet-speak: interruptions, hesitations, dialogue repetitions, and talking at cross purposes.

The storyline amongst all the subtext? Girlfriend Ruth (Francesca Baker) recounts a parable to her on, off, then (possibly) on-again boyfriend Nick (Vkinn Vats) late in the piece: “There were two children who went into the woods and got lost; they put their arms around each other in the dark and fell asleep.” she says. That about sums it up, with much existential angst and bickering to sit through along the way.

Nick has brought Ruth to his family’s cabin in the woods, far from the grimy city, for what seems to be a romantic autumn weekend getaway. The pair oozes otherworldly, childlike innocence—sometimes, one wonders if they have dropped magic mushrooms on the bus there. “I like it here,” Ruth says as she sucks in the ozone-rich rural air that “smells of iodine”.

The duo takes late-night walks, mulls over the sounds of the forest animals, and presumably makes love. They tell each other extended stories of childhood adventures, parents, and grandparents and engage in philosophical musings: “All we have are insights. Who knows if they are real or not?” one says to the other, a source of some unintended humour.

The autumnal setting suggests things will turn frigid in short order, which they duly do. “Go fuck yourself,” says one. “I hope you die,” says the other. The relationship collapses over the course of a single night, though one gets the feeling the pair are living in a different time zone from the rest of us. Initially an oasis of escape and serenity, the cabin becomes a prison: forbidding, isolating, and oppressive.

The play’s emotional heft relies on Nick turning nasty (toxic masculinity is one of Mamet’s bête noirs). But Vkinn Vats plays the character too gently and too ethereally to convince as a domineering control freak. His Nick gazes, unblinking, into the distance from start to finish as if in a state of permanent surprise. “We pick the people we know are bad for us,” says one. But this Nick never becomes bad because, emotionally speaking, he is not present.

Baker’s Ruth is introspective and questioning, and her growing anger at her boyfriend’s inability to communicate feels well charted. But really, there is so little chemistry here that one wonders how these two ever hooked up in the first place. Set designer Constance Comparot peppers the stage with fallen, decaying leaves, a metaphor for where this couple’s connection is heading.

STAR RATING:  2.5 stars

Writer:  David Mamet

Director:  Lydia McNulty