Review: Breathe For Me (Summerworks)

A Playwright to Watch

by Christian Baines

Breathe For Me is not a play interested in giving its audiences a straight answer. After all, Edith (Deborah Kipp) has been trying to get just that out of Edna (Peggy Mahon) for over 50 years. Now confined to a wheelchair, and the victim of increasingly violent seizures, Edna may be running out of time to atone for her chequered past. Or is it all a manipulative ruse to stop Edith from leaving her?

Jesse Stong’s play is a worthy take on a theme too rarely explored; the twilight years of a same-sex relationship. The fact that the partnership is such a difficult one makes it even more interesting, as does the fact that the two women don’t seem to see their relationship in quite the same way. It’s fair to call this unusual and ambitious subject matter for such a young playwright to be taking on, but Stong delivers, writing two complex characters with plenty of courage and just the right amount of unabashed bitterness. On that note, it’s also hard not to see trace elements of Altman’s classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? – albeit without the beloved film’s macabre thrills and camp excesses.

The story is still pushed a little far at times. By play’s end, the couple’s frenzied argument seems little more than a shouting match, so thick and fast are their secrets piled on. There are enough revelations in Breathe For Me for three such plays, and it’s tough not to eventually reach that point where nothing can surprise.

It’s certainly worth seeing, particularly for veteran pros Kipp and Mahon. Stong, meanwhile, remains a playwright to watch, with a healthy appetite for twists and turns, even if Breathe For Me seems a touch overburdened by them.

Breathe For Me plays at Factory Theatre until August 19.