When society seeks to put you in a box . . . what’s the real cost of chasing your dream?
Dead Broke, written by Will King and presented by Lost Dreams Collective at the Theatre Centre, is an engrossing story of young adults that explores the tension between aspiration and survival – and does so with unnerving style, unexpected shifts in tone, and an inventively and appropriately austere aesthetic.
The show begins with relatable and angsty Oliver, played by King, who wants to change his university major. His girlfriend Charlotte (Kiera Publicover) is in his corner, but his ambitions are at odds with the expectations of his parents, who are bankrolling his studies and housing. When they cut off his funds, Oliver faces a choice between housing insecurity and giving up on his dreams. Set in a realistic, recognizable world, which is initially symbolized by what feels like an elevated rooftop space where Oliver and Charlotte discuss the situation, Dead Broke begins as a narrative grounded in recognizable anxieties.
The actors will never return to that part of the stage – or that groundedness. Oliver discovers a decaying house, which allows him to sidestep his conundrum . . .and the play deftly morphs from scrappy social drama into something dark, surreal and entirely different. Perhaps the play’s biggest success is this seamless and incremental transformation, which moves us physically and generically into supernatural and psychological terrain . . . where nothing is quite as it seems.
Under Calvin Peterson’s direction, Dead Broke – which first made a splash at the 2022 Toronto Fringe – is taut, engrossing and skilfully choreographed. A major part of its success lies in the strong performances by King and Publicover, plus Gordon Harper as local drug source Johnny and a loud and funny Diana Del Rosario as Laura, a customer and law school student friend. Particularly striking is Claire Shenstone-HarrisIrina as Johnny’s runner and relationship interest Irina: her intense physical performance carries – with aplomb – much of the weight for the story’s descent into horror.
Credit is also due Chin Palipane’s masterful lighting design, which works in concert with Julia Kim’s innovative, minimalist set—where simple sheets manipulated by the actors stand in for walls, evoking a constantly transforming environment that complements the play’s disorienting reality. With a title like Dead Broke and a focus on student life and insecure housing, the cheap aesthetic, anchored by milk crates, mattresses and those sheets, is a feature, not a bug. And the show makes such good use of all of the angular stage space that your best move (if you have a choice of seating) is to sit in the front row, to ensure your sightline is not obscured at any point.
As the master of horror Stephen King notes, good horror plays on society’s “phobic pressure points.” In Dead Broke, those fears—of thwarted aspiration and housing insecurity and the unraveling of identities they cause—are a chilling illumination of shadows yawning beneath the everyday struggles of yesterday and today. Dead Broke taps into the horror genre’s unique ability to let us peer into the abyss safely, from the darkened comfort of our seats. But watch out: the tour de force ending may have you looking over your shoulder as you leave the theatre.
Dead Broke continues at The Theatre Centre’s BMO Incubator until November 10, 2024. Visit theatrecentre.org to reserve tickets.
© Scott Sneddon, Sesaya Arts Magazine, 2024
