The Antipodes at Coal Mine Theatre: Realistically Speaking…

The Antipodes is not a thesis-driven play, but it knows what it wants to explore: stories.

And the Coal Mine production of The Antipodes, which seems to be the first good-and-proper Toronto theatre “hit” since the pandemic, satisfyingly fleshes out Baker’s thematic explorations.

The production, directed by Ted Dykstra, seizes upon Baker’s hyper-realistic dialogue and creates an accordingly realistic space; the space takes inspiration from the eccentric offices of tech giants and quirky startups, invoking a certain flavour of forced office “freedom” that somehow ends up making the space feel less free, even if there are cool curvy chairs to sit in. This feeling is lovingly punctuated with stacks of bubly — that ubiquitous sparkling water whose Michael Bublé infused ads currently haunt Canadian television.

The trick, though, is that this production is so successful at building up its realism that its seams disappear; but, when a transition hits, and time skips forward, the transition between time periods disrupts the realism, as there is generally not even a lighting cue to cover the transition. This creates some wonderful polarization: rather than, like most contemporary productions, contrasting sort-of realistic scenes with sort-of unrealistic transitions, The Antipodes goes further: it contrasts very realistic scenes with very unrealistic transitions.

And this polarization complements the text in a fascinating way: when you’re watching a scene, it's so realistic that you forget it’s a story, but, when a transition interrupts the scene, you are reminded of the play’s artificiality. So if the play considers whether a story should seamlessly immerse you or self-reflexively meditate on its purpose as art, the production’s form mirrors that consideration nicely.

This mirroring is complicated by a 10-15 minute sequence that takes place over a couple nights during what seems like a hurricane. As the office gets more sleep-deprived, the play’s realism deteriorates further, offering surrealist, nightmare-fuel fantasies that are a thrilling deviation from the play’s established realism.

But this surrealism quiets down for the play’s ending — much like the morning after a crazy night out, nobody in the office seems to believe or remember what happened. And as the play returns to its previous form, the audience begins to disbelieve it too.

So it’s amusing that I heard audiences lamenting the play’s ending — “I hoped there would be more weird stuff!”, someone said. This is a reasonable reaction, of course — those surreal sequences were easily some of the most exciting minutes of theatre I’ve had recently — but, still, if the play evokes those reactions, it has certainly succeeded in making you consider what you personally want to get from your consumption of stories.

And that’s the cool thing about The Antipodes: it makes you consider the different forms stories can take not through pages of thematic analysis, but by metamorphosing into different types of stories — “There are six types of stories.”; “There are eighteen types of stories!”, the characters argue.

My favourite story told in The Antipodes, however, is by a character named Danny M2 (Simon Bracken). Danny opens up to the office by sharing his experience working a summer job where he had to pick up chickens and put them in a coop, and reveals he was very insecure about picking up the chickens. It’s a funny moment, but a heartbreaking one, and Danny follows it up by analyzing the importance of that story within his life and the effect telling to the office is having on him.

But Danny ends up getting reprimanded for his analysis. It seems, then, that the only character who is trying to think about stories critically and openly — the only character who is doing the exact thing The Antipodes is doing — doesn’t have a place in the creepy office where stories are actually made. Which, yeah. Seems true.

Unless you’re at the Coal Mine Theatre: The Antipodes runs ‘til mid May.