A little girl who pees on the floor in the corner of her room; who takes an axe to the keys of her mother’s concert piano; who walks into her neighbours’ house and just stands there, staring at them…
Is it the behaviour of a traumatized child, or a monster in the making?
Alley Theatre explores that sinister question with Little One, the darkly funny, Hannah Moscovitch-penned play about adopted siblings who don’t quite know what to make of one another.
“I think, for me, playing Claire has been a really interesting process,” says actress Marisa Smith. “I mean, it’s a fictional character but it’s given me, in a way, an empathy for families that are in situations where one sibling has severe behavioural problems.”
Smith co-founded Alley Theatre in 2008 with the goal of presenting socially conscious plays that offer a human perspective. She, along with her husband and co-producer Daniel Arnold, have gone on to produce plays about such issues as sex work (Mrs. Warren’s Profession), global warming (Kayak) and, now, childhood mental illness.
“That’s one of the things I like about some of the work we choose at Alley Theatre,” says Arnold, who has the fun task of playing Claire's brother, Aaron, opposite his wife. “Trying to take stories that might be in under the cushions of the couch, and we kind of lift them up and go, ‘What’s there?’”
In Little One, four-year-old Claire has been adopted into the family, bringing with her some suspenseful psychodrama. Meanwhile, six-year-old Aaron has to learn to love his new sister, despite her monstrous behaviour.
Their lives are forever altered by the events that unfold; we meet them first as adults, however, not knowing exactly what happened, and why.
“It’s really neat how it’s structured,” says Smith. “It will start with alternating monologues and then quickly jump into a really fast flashback and then you’ll jump back into a monologue. As an audience member, imagine that you’re just constantly curious as to how it all fits together.”
“We get to play ourselves as like, four-year-olds, six-year-olds, eight-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 16-year-olds,” adds Arnold. “It’s really neat being able to watch and live their progression as they grow up.”
It’s also a testament to Moscovitch's ability to weild the pen and carve these characters out of her imagination.
“It’s a really fun piece to act in,” raves Smith, of the script, “We just really appreciated how well-spoken the characters were. [For example], their speech patterns – there’s all this very specific punctuation, and if you follow that rhythm, it really brings these characters to life.”
Alley Theatre debuted the play in Vancouver at the Vancouver Fringe Festival in 2014. They also recently toured it to the New York Fringe Festival, where it received high praise from institutions like Time Out New York and the Fringe itself.
In writing Little One, Moscovitch, a Trillium Book Award-winner and one of Canada’s most exciting young playwrights to watch, has crafted a good old-fashioned mystery. But she’s also captured the humour of the situation, of a family torn between horror and unconditional love.
“She wrote from a place of asking the question, ‘Is unconditional love ever conditional? When does it become conditional?” explains Arnold. “So there are these polar ideas going on the play. One is this monster being created, but the other is tremendous love, as well.”
Running now until Feb. 13 at the Firehall Arts Centre, Little One doesn’t explicitly acknowledge the fact that Claire might be a psychopath, but Smith and Arnold are curious what the professionals might say. That’s why they’ve invited some psychologists with backgrounds in foster care and Child Protective Services to offer their insights in a panel discussion after the Feb. 11 show – how would they diagnose Claire? What kind of care does she need?
“It’s hard for the general public to know whether behaviours like this are frequent or more normal than we think, because a lot of it is hush-hush, and the play definitely deals with that,” says Arnold. “It’s set in a very nice neighbourhood in Ottawa, and they’re trying to keep things kind of behind closed doors.”
• Little One runs now until Feb. 13 at the Firehall Arts Centre (280 East Cordova). Tickets from $23; FirehallArtsCentre.ca.
