The worst part about The Watch List is that not enough people will see it.
25th Street Theatre could sell out every night of their production, and the number of people who have seen this show will still not be high enough. The Watch List is a bluntly honest, chest-tightening, intense exploration of some of modern society’s most pressing conversations about consent and morality.
The show’s opening is unassuming: mother Michelle (Lisa Bayliss), her husband Todd (Mark Claxton) and Todd’s mother Irene (Michelle Fisk) prepare for their son and grandson Cyrus (Braden Butler) to come home from law school to celebrate his birthday. For the first time, he’s bringing his significant other Amy (Jen Fong) home to meet everyone.
The expected hijinks ensue — Michelle messes up Amy’s name, Irene drops some painfully casual racism towards Amy, and Cyrus butts heads with his parents and grandmother over what is socially acceptable.
The awkward family comedy-drama takes a visceral turn when Cyrus is publicly accused of a heinous act. Let’s not beat around the bush, because the script certainly doesn’t — the tension in this show ratchets upward when it’s discovered that Cyrus has been accused of being a rapist on a digital “watch list” of potentially dangerous law students, and the family is forced to grapple with their own morals while trying to support him.
This is the world premiere of The Watch List, written by Canadian playwright Rachel Aberle. And if this production is any indication, the play is an unmitigated slam dunk. It focuses on conversations that everyone has either had or witnessed — ones that are jarringly pulled from the abstract and into the very, very real for this on-stage family that will feel in many ways so relatable to your own.
Aberle’s stark and realistic dialogue brings so much of these characters so close to home, especially when delivered by the pitch-perfect cast. Bayliss and Claxton are pure gold as the tense parents, and watching their dynamic evolve and their roles in the relationship shift during the show is a masterclass in acting and writing. Fisk plays the out-of-touch grandmother with aplomb, making you raise your hand to your mouth to hide laughter and then keep it there to stifle a gasp at her irreverence. And son Cyrus, the golden child, is embodied artfully by Butler — a young man with so much conviction in his beliefs that he could never imagine being in the wrong — chillingly quiet and stunningly loud in spurts.
But the star of this show is Jen Fong, playing the embattled visiting partner Amy. Fong’s performance is raw, vulnerable and filled with genuine emotion that strikes to the core of human empathy. Even if you’ve never met someone in Amy’s shoes, Fong gives such humanity and depth to her character that you can’t help but ache for her plight as her boyfriend’s family shows their true colours in the face of adversity. Give Fong all the proverbial flowers, because she made this role and all its complexities feel as real as anyone you’ve ever met.
The beauty in Aberle’s script is that the writing itself casts no obvious aspersions. There is no straw man to be taken down by the morals of the play, no argument with a clear winner, no villain to be defeated by inherent rightness or made to change their ways to inherent goodness. The audience is left to make those decisions on their own as they watch the characters change their minds as the play progresses.
The show isn’t perfect — no show ever is. The script occasionally beats you over the head with some of its ideas and lingers a little too long in moments, but that’s frankly how people tend to talk in real life.
Was the show deeply entertaining? Perhaps not, as far as most comedies or tragedies might take you in a theatre. Was it incredibly good, compelling theatre? Undeniably. The Watch List does what it sets out to do. It’s a brisk 100-minute show that leaves little on the table, though you’re almost craving more resolution that never arrives when it ends.
You aren’t left knowing definitely what’s right and what’s wrong, but you’re left wondering how you would’ve handled this same situation. The script makes you question yourself in a way that is simultaneously terrifying and magnificent.Hats off to Aberle and 25th Street Theatre. Conversations about assault and consent are never easy, and there’s rarely an obvious perfect answer, but this is a conversation that unfortunately comes up repeatedly in our lives and in the media.
There are too many plays that take on tough, contemporary topics through the veneer of some weird metaphor or abstract framing device. The Watch List tackles these conversations in a way that is real, vulnerable and heartfelt, and the cast and crew have done a magnificent job bringing them to life.
The Watch List runs Feb. 4 to 14 at the BackStage Stage. Tickets can be purchased online at 25thstreettheatre.org.
