Come for the mystery, stay for the absolutely excellent last line. A new play by Calgary's James Odin Wade at Workshop West Playwrights' Theatre combines taut dialogue, intense emotion and a gripping narrative that keeps the audience on the edge of its seat until the surprising final scene. It's a satisfying end to the WWPT season and one that offers a challenging package of ideas to deconstruct on the way home from the show, while also dishing out an evening of sheerly good entertainment.
A Look at Gen Z's Struggles
Everyone Is Doing Fine takes a look at what it's like to be a member of Gen Z, with an expensive degree disappearing rapidly into the distance, and few prospects to propel forward action. The world premiere, directed by Heather Inglis, examines late-stage capitalism, but with a mature eye. There are no clear villains. Each of the three characters grapples with significant discomfort about the way they live their lives.
The Characters
Daniel (David Madawo) is a recent grad from art school who has an unfortunate — though morally justified — professional meltdown, and ends up losing his prestigious and hard-won internship at a gallery in New York. But he still has to make rent, so has taken a job as a personal assistant to a hedge-fund manager named Caleb (Sebastian Ley). He's not a bad guy, Daniel tells his art-school friend Anika (Christina Nguyen) when she comes to ogle Caleb's swank brownstone. In fact, he's quite nice and helpful. He's introducing Daniel to some movers and shakers who could advance his career. But there's also something vaguely creepy, and just a little needy, about Caleb. He is significantly older than the other two characters and used to date a friend of theirs. A friend who has since mysteriously disappeared.
Anika is in the midst of her own existential crisis. She and her boyfriend have broken up after Anika created an uncomfortable scene at a destination wedding in Costa Rica, blaming the bride for adding fuel to the climate change fire. Anika is very in-your-face — passionate, political and pissed-off — but all that fervour feels like a front. She's been reduced to giving tours at the MOMA instead of doing something more creative with her artistic training, and her own Instagram account makes her feel like a big, fat phony.
Prepared to dismiss Caleb as an arrogant finance bro when he arrives unexpectedly back at his own home, Anika softens slightly after a few cocktails and a job offer that could actually prove meaningful. But something is off; Anika is obsessed with a room in Caleb's basement that's locked up and frankly suspicious.
A Tight Script
Wade's one-act, 100-minute script leads us down Generation Z's angsty life path — a path that's been trod by generations before, lending a nice resonance to the story no matter what your age — and it doesn't waste a word in doing so. It's also frequently funny, a much-needed relief given the dark themes of the production.
