Vitals Provides High Quality Entertainment for Those Who Want More

Vitals Provides High Quality Entertainment for Those Who Want More
by Michael K. Potter

REVIEW of Vitals by Rosamund Small. Produced and directed by and starring Mary Grace Weir as performed at The Shadowbox Theatre on 8 March 2024 (opening night). Three performances remain: March 14, 15 & 16 at The Shadowbox Theatre (1501 Howard ave. – corner of Howard & Shepherd). 8:00 pm (doors open 7:30). Tickets are $25 via https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/vitals-by-rosamund-small-tickets-847475119897?aff=oddtdtcreator or cash, debit, or credit card at the MNSi Telecom Box Office (if seats are still available).

Last week Vitals by Rosamund Small opened at The Shadowbox Theatre to an enraptured and thoroughly engaged audience, most of whom stayed after the performance for a Q&A session with director/producer/star Mary Grace Weir and two local paramedics. Small wrote the script based on interviews with Toronto area paramedics and first responders, weaving their stories into one coherent narrative about a paramedic named Anna (played by Weir) who’s struggling to admit the toll her work has taken on her mental health. Anyone skeptical about the honesty and accuracy of the stories Anna tells about her experiences would have been convinced by, if nothing else, the extremely emotional reactions from the paramedics in attendance, who trough tears thanked Weir for her performance and spoke openly of how accurately the play conveyed their own experiences.

But one needn’t have waited for the Q&A session to have been won-over by Vitals – and as a piece of theatre, it’s beside the point whether the stories the play shares are truly drawn from real life. What matters is the quality of the art itself, the authenticity and impact of the experience. With Vitals, Mary Grace Weir has shepherded Small’s already excellent script to a higher plane, creating a thoroughly intense and provocative production that had me thinking about little else for days afterward.

Working with minimal set, props, and costuming – using only what is required and nothing else – Weir grabs the audience’s attention from the very beginning with a recorded 911 call. The audience hears only one side of this call, the operator’s, leaving them curious about what it means and where it fits into the narrative, effectively forecasting developments in Anna’s life that will at the end of the play come full circle back to this call. Anna sits on stage, changing into her uniform as she begins telling her story, literally getting into character in front of the audience. Once she’s suited up she launches into a series of emotionally diverse and intricately connected stories that take the audience on an uncomfortably empathic journey through her career. As stories mount Anna becomes increasingly and visibly flustered, unwound, anxious, and traumatized. Her hand washing, which starts out as a simple ritual to which anyone can relate, becomes an act undertaken for deeper and more figurative purposes, a compulsion that seems to catch Anna herself by surprise. Many of her stories are quite funny; most are tragic and some veer from one emotional extreme to another. Weir keeps the audience’s eyes and ears glued not only to her performance – which is less a performance than an embodiment – throughout, never letting the audience off the hook, keeping them dangling on her line, so engrossed in the proceedings that they don’t realize they’re being reeled in until they’re squirming in the air and it’s too late. At that point the audience has no choice but to see the play through to its end, whatever that may be.

Weir’s use of the basic instruments of her craft, voice and body, are impeccable throughout Vitals, as is her thoughtful and self-assured direction. It’s difficult for someone from the theatre, like myself, to be lost completely in a play because parts of my brain are always analyzing the choices behind the acting, the direction, the lighting and sound design, and all else. Nevertheless, I found that many of Weir’s choices had completely slid by me unnoticed until I reflected on the play afterwards because I was so caught up in the moment-to-moment progress of the narrative. A rare feat and I admit to feeling somewhat taken aback that she had caught me so off-guard.

The Windsor-Essex region is blessed with an incredible array of live theatrical entertainment. Most of the time that entertainment is just that, mere entertainment in the contemporary sense of something intended to distract us from the world and allow us to turn off our higher faculties for a couple of hours. Sometimes that’s fine with me; sometimes I’m content to be distracted by spectacle and glitz and glamour. And there’s certainly a lot to admire in those kinds of productions. The skill involved is astonishing. They can be memorable. But most of the time I want something more from my entertainment. Most of the time I want my brain to be fully active and my heart to be grasped within a tight fist. I want to be challenged and pushed to perceive differently, think differently, feel differently. I want to emerge from the theatre transformed in some way – preferably in a way I don’t expect or anticipate. Vitals had exactly this affect on me. With this productions, Mary Grace Weir has gifted our region with an opportunity to understand a way of life most of us will never (thankfully) encounter ourselves, to be sucked into experiencing it vicariously through Anna, and to emerge with a deeper and better understanding of our world – not to mention an appreciation for the human beings courageous enough to confront the most difficult aspects of life and death on a daily basis. You owe it to yourself to see this play.

NOTE: Mary Grace Weir is donating all net proceeds from Vitals to We Help First, a peer-support network for first responders. If you don’t buy tickets for the best reason, because you want to experience first-rate theatre, I recommend buying tickets and attending a performance so you can contribute financially to a worthy cause instead.