Substance abusers

SUGAR by Rosa Laborde, directed by Ian Carpenter, with Veronika Hurnik, Carlo Rota, Christopher Sawchyn and Lina Felice. Presented by the Centre for the Arts (533 College, suite 303). July 2, 4 and 11 at 8:30 pm, July 3 and 10 at 9 pm, July 5, 8 and 12 at 8 pm, July 6 and 13 at 3:30 pm, July 9 at 9:30 pm.

don’t worry, ian carpenter hasn’t given up on theatre. If the summer festival vet (Easy, Muscle Memory, Catch) has been missing from the local indie scene lately, it’s because he’s been finishing up his PhD and working in Bangkok.

Until now, that is. He’s directing Rosa Laborde’s Sugar, a look at a cottage full of people whose arguments about the effects of sugar and caffeine on their moods and bodies reveal lots of problems about their relationships.

“They try to last three days without coffee, chocolate, sugar or any stimulants,” says Carpenter, a writer, director and one-third of the experimental troupe Theatre Viscera. “They go through the subtle and horrible pangs of withdrawal, until their relationships start to grate and they eventually cave in to their cravings.”

Carpenter was drawn to Laborde’s play (he also directed her Rhubarb! work The Source) because of its precise writing.

“It’s like the way actors talk about Mamet’s writing, where every word and comma is in place,” he says. “She’s funny, but beneath all the comedy there’s a writer obsessed with issues I find compelling. There’s a cultural critique in there.”

To help draw out the honesty in the humour, he approached the initial rehearsal period as if the play were a drama.

“I explained to the cast that we weren’t going to have fun initially, that we were going to chase the issues of the characters, what they need and want from each other,” he says. “We don’t go for the laughs. It’s like we have an equalizer at rehearsals, where we crank something up and pull another thing down, trying to find the perfect mix.” GS