Caught – Review

Caught has such promise.

Caught – A Theatre Passe Muraille Production

I hope Jordi Mand continues to work on the piece, expanding on her ideas and plugging some of the holes in the writing.  This intense three hander takes place in the backroom of a department store.  A cocky teen has stolen over $2000 worth of products.  He has been caught by a female security guard and she gathers information about him while they wait for the police to arrive.  We soon realize that what initially seems like a routine encounter is anything but.  I won’t give away the plot twists as it is fun to see it unravel.  Mand has come up with a creative concept but there are moments when the script lacks plausibility.  There are sections that felt rushed and needed more of a build in order for the story to be entirely believable.

This piece is smartly and economically directed by Sarah Garton Stanley.  She makes the already small playing space of Theatre Passé Muraille even smaller.  This adds to the claustrophobia of the play.  These characters can’t escape, there is nowhere to go.  Stanley has her actors play it very naturally and all three are convincing in their characters.  The latter half of the play did become too much of a shouting match.  It appeared like every actor felt the need to shout to get their point across and it didn’t always seem necessary.  In fact, the intensity might have built further if the explosions of emotions were saved for specific moments.

Caught –  A Theatre Passe Muraille Production

Sabryn Rock plays the security guard Trisha.  She is tough with an underlying fragility.  She was especially strong in the first half of the play where she bounced off of Jakob Ehman’s charming James.  Ehman is terrific in the part.  He has huge charisma and is so relaxed that it seems effortless.  He was definitely the stand out for me and his magnetizing presence kept stealing my focus.  Meegwun Fairbrother rounds out the cast as the cop, Dan. Fairbrother attacks the role with power and intensity.

This is an entertaining piece of theatre and you definitely want to check out this young, up and coming writer.  The inspiration for her work is the current state of the world so she has a lot of compelling topics to draw upon.  I’ll be interested to see what she creates next.

Caught runs until April 24^th.