The rendition by McGill’s Players’ Theatre, directed by Clay Walsh, successfully balanced the play’s heavy subject matter with light scenes of comic relief, despite the drama’s overall mournful tone. However, the audience becomes disoriented as they are constantly pulled between these two extremes: is this a comedy or a tragedy? The setting seems to suggest that it should be a comedy – the retro donut shop reminiscent of vintage sitcoms, with regular customers that never fail to amuse with their obvious social awkwardness.

However, despite chuckling at the offhand remarks made by Franco (the young new employee of Superior Donuts) I was left with a sinking despair at the intermission and after the play. Feeling betrayed by the play’s unexpected darkness, it became clear to me that Superior Donuts, unlike regular donuts, was not meant to make you feel good. In fact, the play is a dark comedy that explores not only themes of loss and friendship, but also the underlying systems of oppression that drive the characters into dilemmas where they must pit their dreams against reality.

The rendition by McGill’s Players’ Theatre, directed by Clay Walsh, successfully balanced the play’s heavy subject matter with light scenes of comic relief, despite the drama’s overall mournful tone.

Jonathan Vanderzon played Arthur, the middle-aged donut master of Polish descent who has experienced a series of hardships, leading him to expect nothing but failure. As a disillusioned divorcee whose estranged wife died of cancer after their separation, he is too emotionally numb to notice that a young police officer, Randy Osteen (played by Francesca Scotti-Goetz) has fallen in love with him. A young Black man named Franco Wicks (played by Sory Ibrahim Kaboré) charms Arthur into offering him a much-needed job at the shop, and proceeds to attempt to rectify both Arthur’s romantic life and his failing business.

The well-spoken Franco boldly urges Arthur to update the establishment by playing lively music and offering healthy menu options, citing the ‘Whole Foods mentality‘ that is emerging in the working-class neighbourhood as a result of gentrification. Unfortunately, like his donut shop, Arthur is stuck in the past and takes offence at Franco’s suggestions, yelling, “I’m the owner!” in a tense moment, shredding any illusion that this play is a simple comedy. Franco attempts to talk Arthur out of his pessimism, to no avail. Not only does Arthur doubt change will benefit his shop but he also resists change in general, insisting on keeping his hair long, and his clothes as disheveled as his store.

Franco is a ray of hope in every sense of the term. He brings humour to the table with his witty comebacks to Arthur and serves up some ambition to the audience as he presents him with a battered manuscript. It is for his Great American Novel about a Black man who tries to make it big in the States. Even Arthur, a secret literature buff, is blown away by the young man’s talent and urges him to show the book to a publisher. After Arthur leaves the scene, however, two Italian mafiosos who describe themselves as Franco’s ‘friends’ come to extort Franco for the $16,000 he owed them in gambling money. The boss Luther Flynn (played by Thomas Fix) gives him an ultimatum: have the money by next week or suffer the consequences. Arthur arrives just in time to see them leaving but Franco refuses to reveal their identity.

The play is a dark comedy that explores not only themes of loss and friendship, but also the underlying systems of oppression that drive the characters into dilemmas where they must pit their dreams against reality.

The downward spiral begins. When Franco begins to get uncomfortably familiar with Arthur by asking what happened to his wife, Arthur gives him the cold shoulder, saying that he was only paid to work, not to talk, and this rupture marks the end of Franco’s optimism. One week later, Arthur learns that Franco has been hospitalized because two men broke his fingers and destroyed his precious manuscript. Arthur ultimately acquits Franco’s debt out of his own pocket, planning to redeem his friendship with Franco after the latter exits the hospital. But when Franco returns to the donut shop, he is quiet and withdrawn because his dream was destroyed along with his novel.

As the play descends into a series of tragic events, the hopeless circumstances faced by the main characters appear to be consequences not of their own actions – but of a society built upon racial discrimination. As Franco strives toward the so-called ‘American dream,’ systemic oppression is evident as he is forced to drop out of school and resort to working in a donut shop to support his mother and sisters who are living on food stamps.

However, despite acknowledging these intersections of racism and classism and implicitly critiquing capitalism, the play fails to interrogate its own perpetuation of these systemic issues. Franco’s character plays upon racial stereotypes: he is portrayed as an ‘entertainer,’ playing the light-hearted, funny, and extroverted Black friend to Arthur. Similarly, the Black police officer is depicted as frivolous and irrational when he is berated for dressing up as various fictional characters at comic book conventions. Even Arthur’s character relies on the trope of ‘Polish hopelessness’ – a common and explicit theme in his many soliloquies – through his introverted, awkward, pessimistic, and old-fashioned depiction.

The hopeless circumstances faced by the main characters appear to be consequences not of their own actions – but of a society built upon racial discrimination.

The play’s highly problematic conclusion continues to reinforce the hierarchy it attempts to critique. A now-optimistic Arthur pays off Franco, who has shifted from stereotypically ‘entertaining’ to hopeless, enacting the white-saviour narrative. In a twist of events, Franco rejects Arthur’s help, insisting that he “doesn’t want no handouts” as an acknowledgment of the same structural forces that cornered him into his current servitude.

Overall, the actors portrayed their characters very effectively, especially Jonathan Vanderzon, who infused Arthur’s soliloquies with just the right amount of nostalgia to convey the spirit of a rebellious young man in a middle-aged body. Another highlight was Lady Boyle (played by Gretel Kahn), the eccentric, colourfully-dressed elderly lady who speaks too loudly and can make Arthur smile like nobody else. Kaboré was delightfully energetic and playful as Franco, radiating hope – at least in the beginning – and representing the beating heart of the plot.

Despite acknowledging these intersections of racism and classism and implicitly critiquing capitalism, the play fails to interrogate its own perpetuation of these systemic issues.

However, Franco and Arthur’s dialogues seemed a little forced at times – though this is perhaps intentional given that Arthur is supposed to be an awkward character. The dynamic between Arthur and Lady Boyle was the most natural one. In general, all the other characters seemed to have little rapport with each other, resulting in slightly awkward stage dialogues in which it seemed more like the characters were waiting for each other’s turn to speak rather than having a natural conversation.

Despite my initial disappointment that the play was not the comedy I expected it to be, the tragic elements provided insight into the harsh conditions faced by Chicago’s immigrant and racialized working class. After the play ended, the audience was left wondering: how can hope – embodied by Franco Wicks – survive, when society is building barriers between him and his dream? Judging by the solemn ending, the story line seems to suggest that hope cannot survive as long as society revolves around structural violence, despite Arthur’s hopeful recitation of the catchphrase that “America will be.” The deliciously good acting and witty repartees will leave you with a bitter aftertaste once you realize that this play is a grim but accurate depiction of the tragedy of a boy who fails to make it big due to the class-based and racial barriers plaguing the country he once idealized.

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Kama La Mackerel is a Montreal-based performer, story-teller, and multi-disciplinary artist who explores themes of resistance and healing for marginalized communities through aesthetic practices. As a trans woman of colour, Kama La Mackerel is no stranger to microaggressions, particularly those perpetrated within transmisogynist, ableist, and imperialist institutions against her body.

The performance, though uncomfortable to watch, was cathartic through its dissection of the physical and emotional “freezing” that many marginalized people experience when they aren’t acknowledged or denied authority.To paraphrase her own description of the piece, the freezing response may arise from feelings of shock or disempowerment. It may serve as a coping mechanism, or a default reaction to a microaggression when responding is risky or requires too much emotional, physical, and mental labour. Her performance reflected this debilitating reaction that renders the individual incapable of anything but micro-movements that emphasize the painful heaviness of the systems of power as they enact violence upon marginalized bodies.

Such systems are represented by the chicken wires. The artist wore thick layers during her micro-contortions to symbolize the thick skin and resilience of marginalized people fighting for survival in an unsafe environment. Spectators were invited to participate by writing about a time when they have experienced a microaggression within an institution and to roll the testimony and attach it to the wire that restricts the artist’s movement. They can then come into the performance space and reflect on their experience, breathing deeply to let go of all the heaviness associated with the trauma.

After her performance, the artist mentioned that the freezing response is not a complete cessation of activity as it would appear to the aggressor. Instead, the survivor is still alive. They still have thoughts and feelings and a beating heart throbbing under their immobile outer shell. Kama’s dynamization of the freezing response introduces the audience to the inner perspective of the survivor, thus empowering the survivor and encouraging observers to slowly release their heavy emotions along with the contortions of the artist’s burdened body.

What was left of the installation post-performance was reminiscent of a school graduation: the white sheets bearing the testimonies were rolled up and tied with a black ribbon, suspended in the chicken wire. The creased black fabric partly covering the floor beneath the wires is similar to a graduation gown and gives observers the impression that a struggle occurred within the space but that the individual has managed to escape, leaving behind traces of their pain through the testimonies and the marks of her body on the fabric.

Overall, this piece explores the internalization of oppression and its effects on the survivor’s movements and emotions. Ultimately, Kama La Mackerel sends a message of resilience by examining the pain through her evocation of a graduation from an internalized submission to the aggressor to an externalized expression of the survivor’s feelings and struggles. The artist expresses hope that marginalized people can break themselves free from society’s projection that they are voiceless and traceless as they move toward being an agent within oppressive institutions.

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“D’un objet à l’autre” was easy to overlook: David’s ordinary-looking plywood boards nailed to the wall looked so much like part of the gallery space that I bypassed the pieces entirely and went to see the other artwork first. Upon returning, however, I noticed differences in the sculptures that hadn’t captured my sight before: they each seemed to have slight modifications in the angles of the edges and in the cut of the plywood.

After about half an hour of carefully navigating the room, I realized that the four slabs of plywood are actually very distinct from one another, despite the similarities that make them a coherent exhibit. The individual boards are full of character in and of themselves: everything from the pattern of micro-swirls formed by the cut of the wood to the way the light hits the surface of the sculptures is unique. The plywood structures turned out to be anything but background noise, although one has to be attentive and patient to grasp this.

Angelopoulos’s “Opaque Architectures” is much easier to interpret. Each of the six conté-on-paper works, a technique that uses compressed powdered graphite for drawing, featured a continuous, brightly coloured string trapped by black lines. At first glance, the pieces looked like explorations of form, but in an interview with The Daily, Angelopoulos explained that, “these pieces are part of an attempt to highlight the ubiquitous – [and] therefore invisible – structures oppressing our feelings, impulses, and desires.” One of the most representative pieces is called Parents, which features a continuous pink ray encircled by black lines. The black figures resemble parents stretching their loving arms out and limiting the span of the innocent pink thread, perhaps symbolizing their child, as if in an effort to protect it.

“[Opaque Architectures] are part of an attempt to highlight the ubiquitous – [and] therefore invisible – structures oppressing our feelings, impulses, and desires.”

Angelopoulos’s exhibit also features three black steel sculptures, bearing resemblance to the black ball and chain that traps the colour in her two-dimensional works. The sculptures each reference certain oppressive frameworks, such as the way conscience limits our freedom, without directly representing any concrete object. Weight of conscience is visually and symbolically reminiscent of a whip or even a gallows, alluding to the way people’s thoughts torment them while driving their actions, much like a whip makes a horse run but also harms the animal in the process.

Another of Angelopoulos’ pieces, You’re Hysterical, portrays a ghostlike figure with its arms up in despair, as if both acquiescing to the negative label imposed upon it by the piece’s title and rebelling against it through an active gesture. The sculpture made me think about mental illness, which can be both a consequence of an overwhelming environment and, perhaps, sometimes allowing the sufferer to dissociate from and push against the structures that oppress them.

Both artists’ pieces in the exhibit achieved their goal of exposing invisible structures by highlighting their idiosyncrasies and oppressive nature while prompting viewers to reflect on them. If you decide to go (and you should), go twice: you will notice something different each time.

“D’un objet à l’autre” and “Opaque Architectures” run until April 23 at Parisian Laundry gallery.

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The film portrays the struggles of ordinary people in a crumbling system. At the Cinema Politica Concordia screening of the film, McAllister said that the project was often questioned by the BBC, and the moviemaker was pressured to conduct other missions in neighbouring countries instead of shooting a Syrian documentary. Despite this, the filmmaker wouldn’t let it go, returning to Syria to work on the project secretly.

As the Arab Spring protests develop in Syria in March 2011, the documentary follows Amer, his children, and the crowds of peaceful protesters as they march to demand the release of political prisoners and freedom of speech under the Assad regime. They are all severely beaten and arrested by government forces. The documentary presents international media coverage of the protests leading to the release of political dissidents as part of sham “reforms,” – Raghda is among those released, but her return home is far from cheerful. The torture she suffered in prison has left a lasting mark on her psyche, as she is haunted by flashbacks and nightmares of the tortured bodies of prisoners condemned to the interrogation techniques of the Mukhabarat, the military intelligence agency. As portrayed in the film, Raghda was not an exception to brutal beatings as punishment for holding membership of the opposition and “betraying” Assad.

Through personal narratives, the film departs as much as possible from the dehumanizing coverage of Syria often apparent in Western media. It does a remarkable job of giving a powerful voice to the protagonists by capturing the intimate family moments where each person struggles with the destruction of their old lives. Political contextualization is kept to a minimum, and the film instead highlights the impact that the conflict has on the family’s psyche. McAllister stated after the film screening, “I wanted to show what the media [doesn’t] cover.”

No stone is left unturned in the hunt for dissidents, and McAllister soon finds himself in prison for having filmed Raghda and Amer. He is later released, as the demonstrations multiply and the army focuses its efforts on shooting protesters in the streets. McAllister intertwines the recollections of the characters with brief shots of protests, but puts more emphasis on the strong emotions of each character during pivotal moments in their personal lives. The close-ups portray the blunt reality and intimate battles, making it difficult for viewers to look away, and the charming eloquence of the protagonists makes it just as difficult not to listen.

As Syria becomes excessively dangerous for the family, they flee to Lebanon in 2012, where Raghda quickly decides to leave Amer and the children to continue her activism in Syria. Raghda eventually returns, although it is never clear why or how, and the family is granted political asylum in France due to Raghda’s reputation as a political opposition figure.

The editing of the film preserves its authenticity with the jumps from one year to the next, and creates a sense that a lot of context was left behind. However, in those rough transitions from one scene to another, there is a consistent focus on portraying the family’s struggles. The divide between the lovers grows in the face of Raghda’s distance from the heart of the revolution. She remains a relentless activist, and is forced to balance time spent with family and her devotion to establish justice.

McAllister includes himself in the documentary, following the couple in Syria and mediating between their endless disputes. Among the most haunting images is the bathroom vignette displaying the dark markings on the wall left by Raghda after her suicide attempt when she discovers Amer’s infidelity. This event marks the beginning of an end between them, and McAllister’s close-ups starts to feel more intrusive as he probes into each one’s deep wounds with questions or silent filming.

Despite the heaviness of their exile, the protagonists manage to find slivers of humour, and the viewer can’t help but smile at the endearing moments they share fawning over their youngest son Bob. It is obvious that great love remains between the children and their parents and between all of them and Syria, even as it fades between Raghda and Amer. The scenes at the end of the movie are especially decontextualized, but eventually the viewer understands that Raghda has left to work as a cultural advisor for the exiled opposition government in Turkey. Everything from the beginning of the documentary has changed, and the last scene shows Amer cutting leaves in his small garden in France to a backdrop of silence.

In the question & answer session on Monday, McAllister said that even though neither Raghda nor Amer could make it to Canada, Raghda sent him an email to pass on to the audience: “The Revolution is alive. Keep hope.”

Perhaps, the most powerful aspect of this film is that all these events are real and undeniably striking with the deadly crackdown against political dissidents continuing in Syria to this day. A Syrian Love Story is profoundly compelling, because of the relatability of losing love, fighting for freedom, and striving for change politically and individually.

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