The profession I aspire to was theatrically torn to shreds before my very eyes; The Daily Miracle cut right into the flesh of journalism’s hurting industry. I’ll admit, it was a brutal experience, but it felt good too.
Perceptively written by David Sherman, a former Montreal Gazette copy editor, The Daily Miracle is a fictional, present-day account of four desk workers at the Montreal Star working the night shift. The play’s story unfolds in real-time as the “deskers” fill in updates for the paper’s final edition and check the news wire for the latest updates.
At the emotional heart of the story is reporter Elizabeth (the magnificent Ellen David), a single mother who is forced to juggle her evening’s workload (which includes writing an inane story about the snowfall in Montreal), while also dealing with her sick child being babysat at home.
Liz also has to fend off approaches from her mentally unstable, pill-popping coworker Marty (the hilariously bizarre Arthur Holden), who has just returned to work after a stay in a mental hospital. They are joined by Carrie (Sheena Gazé-Deslandes), an aspiring journalist who tries to gain the attention of the boss, Ben (Howard Rosenstein), by wearing skimpy outfits. Rounding out the cast is Roland (Jean-Guy Bouchard), the typographer turned janitor, who importantly symbolizes the ever-changing newspaper medium but is an unwanted distraction theatrically.
Overshadowing the newsroom chaos is an executive meeting of the corporate owners, which Liz believes will lead to large-scale layoffs, or worse. She frantically calls her contacts at other papers, trying to get to the bottom of the story, one which Ben repeatedly said he wouldn’t run.
Newspaper writing, as typified in the play, is meant to be direct and without flourish. Therefore, it is surprising that Sherman, a newspaper man himself, wrote such a well fleshed out and detailed play. The Daily Miracle captures the absurdities of working at a paper, from answering queries about that day’s recipe (a teaspoon of baking powder was missing from the zucchini cake recipe) to putting a photo of the latest starlet to play the Bell Centre on the cover instead of a more meaningful story.
The Daily Miracle was more than enjoyable; it was pleasurable in the most sadomasochistic sense. Seeing a daily Montreal newspaper come to its knees in the face of corporate cutbacks was emotionally exhilarating to witness but nonetheless painful.
The play was also extremely current, referencing ongoing issues, such as the Journal de Montreal lockout and the H1N1 outbreak. However, the written word would be nothing without the tremendous Ellen David, who appeared last year as the conservative Italian mother in the Centaur Theatre’s Piazza San Domenico. As the undeterred journalist trying to land the scoop while keeping her crazy life at bay, David outshines her co-stars and makes her character real, down to the way she chewed on a carrot stick.
Bain St-Michel is a tough venue in which to properly construct a set. In essence, it’s an empty indoor pool off of St. Laurent Street. However, with designer James Lavoie at the helm, the set was masterful, including fully-functional computers on office desks placed strategically along the incline into the pool’s shallow end. It also included a television set showing a Habs game and a window with falling snow; the vacant pool was transformed into a near carbon copy of Sherman’s old haunting grounds.
This is a fantastic piece of theatre. If you are a journalist, aspiring or otherwise, or merely a consumer of news, this play may change the way you look at newspapers.
Infinitheatre’s The Daily Miracle plays at Bain St-Michel (5300 St. Dominique) until Feb. 14. Tickets are $15 for students, $20 for adults. Visit www.infinitheatre.com for more information.
