Josh Johnston, Kiera Publicover and Helen Juvonen in “Isle of Demons’, Photo by Raph Nogal
I caught Guild Festival Theatre’s atmospheric triumph late in its run and am thrilled I didn’t miss it entirely. On the verge, for the whole performance, of being rained out, the wet and blustery weather actually enhanced the experience. Barricading ourselves against the elements with blankets and umbrellas, the audience becomes an experiential echo of the characters in Robert Chafe’s Isle of Demons.
Drawing us into an isolated and inhospitable island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, mid-16th century, the play tells the true story Marguerite de la Roque, a French noblewoman stranded and struggling to survive the harsh wilderness. Along with her nurse, Damienne (Helen Juvonen) and lover, Eugene (Josh Johnston), Marguerite (Kiera Publicover) was abandoned by her guardian, Jean-François Roberval, newly appointed viceroy of Canada. Angered by the impropriety of her affair with the young naval officer, he abandons them all on the remote island on his way to found New France with Jacques Cartier.
Highly speculative and probing, the play invents a rich inner life for each of these three characters. The lyrical text has our trio negotiating a brutal landscape, class dynamics and superstition with fortitude. Though there are moments of humour, romance and mutual affection, the story’s driving mechanism is an eerie foreboding. The wild creatures that threaten them are never identified. You can rationalize them as wolves or bears, but Chafe makes them amorphous and gives them mythic resonance. They are a menacing and voracious symbol of threat—their grim circumstances made flesh and fur in our shared imagination.
And who are these burdened people? Marguerite seems at first to be, well, kind of a brat. Her aristocratic lifestyle has made her arrogant, but Publicover highlights her endearing naivety and playfulness. A propulsive desire to have some agency over their situation rises within her. As she’s forced to hold her own amidst devastating consequences, we recognize how that essential entitlement enables her survival instincts.
As she clings to the possibility of rescue, her willful optimism sets her at odds with Eugene and Damienne. They try to ground her in the dismal reality of their predicament, but her stubbornness persists, which leads to such compelling friction in their impassioned quarrels. Eugene can be patronizing, though Johnston captures the genuine integrity and boyish charm that endears him to her. Often disarmingly funny when you least expect it, Juvonen is a formidable presence throughout. A scene in which she finally pushes back after years of pent-up frustration is poignant and stirring.
As things take a baleful turn for the worse, we start to question Marguerite’s state of mind and the spectral apparitions she’s contending with. And it’s here that the creepy and harrowing elements ramp right up!
After many years working in this space, director Tyler J. Seguin knows the Greek Theatre at Guild Park & Gardens like the back of his hand and his production makes bold and vivid use of it. Production designer Kalina Popova gives us mounds of textured fabric to suggest the hard, unforgiving stone of the island. Adam Walter’s ominous lighting provides a persuasive, eldritch aura. As the daylight dwindles, the intensity of the neon purple, deep red and ominous blue saturate the venue. In her soundscape, Ashley Naomi Skye fills the air with sinister howls and creaks. It’s all deliciously moody.
I’m still chuckling over the moments of self-aware humour that arose from lines of dialogue that seemed to acknowledge the rainy weather that bombarded us—either directly or ironically. Hilarious correlation aside, it is a tribute to the strength of the material and this team’s potent rendering that the performance was deeply compelling despite—and including!—the environmental distractions.
The final, transcendent image is both haunting and empowering. Taking its place among Salt-Water Moon (2021) and The Drowning Girls (2023), I’ll cherish Isle of Demons as one of my favourite GFT experiences. Though their lighter fare can be charming, these sombre, heartfelt works are consistently powerful.
Isle of Demons
running August 8 to 25, 2024
The Greek Theatre @ Guild Park & Gardens
(201 Guildwood Parkway, Scarborough)
running time: 85 minutes (no intermission)
Josh Johnston and Kiera Publicover in “Isle of Demons’, Photo by Raph Nogal