COPY THAT

REVIEW OF NEW PLAY BY JASON SHERMAN AT TARRAGON

Jason Sherman’s new play Copy That opened at the TarragonTheatre and one is hard pressed to come to grips with it. We meet fourfast-talking, excited and anxious writers who are under the gun to draft fourepisodes of a cop show for television. The pressure comes from “above,” thevoice of Ella, also known as The Angel of Death who merits a Nazi salute. Elsais played with Gauleiter and duplicitous style by Janet-Laine Green.

The talking and moving speed is reduced to comprehensible speed and wefind out the identity of the writes (but not much more) and some details aboutwrestling with a script to please Elsa, the network and people in higher placeswhich may stretch to God.

The writers are a motley crew, intentionally choses as such. Maia (EmmaFerreira) is half black and half white, Colin (Tony Ofori) is black and Peter(Richard Waugh) and Danny (Jeff Lillico) are all white.

What appears as a play about the turbulent lives of writers trying toplease and write a TV series that will work takes a sharp turn when Colin isstopped by a couple of cops for driving a nice car while black. More precisely,for driving while under the influence of alcohol with an almost white woman(Maia) asleep in the back seat. What follows is a racist attack on Colinincluding tasering, physical assault and humiliating arrest. It is a familiarstory that we get from many parts of the United States and we like to pretend thatit does not happen in Canada.

From then on the play tackles the issue of racism, the representation ofracist cops of television and the fight against that type of bigotry. Theproblem is that these writers are simply trying to write entertaining episodesfor a television show. Therefore we have the clash of ordinary televisionprogramming and high moral standards and social conditions.

The arguments are not particularly original and the fight by Colinagainst writers who are trying to make a living and have to follow theinstructions of The Angel of Hell and higher authorities is pretty staid.People sympathize with Colin but the reality of writing a script for televisionand the reality of being beaten up by racist cops cannot be united easily into asocial, anti-racism tract and a multi-episode television series. Or can theynot?

Sherman tries hard to convince us that maybe, just maybe the can but theend of the play is highly unsatisfactory, unclear and unconvincing.

There is relatively little character development. Peter is high-strung,histrionic and under pressure to please the boss. We do get some background informationabout him but he remains the same person, acting the same way almost throughoutthe play.

Jeff Lillico’s Danny is basically a yes-man at the beginning andrealistic about what the job requires until he is accused of racism because hemaintains the dividing line between television entertainment and socialcommentary. Ferreira as Maia says relatively little until she explodes andasserts herself. But she backs off in her accusations of the racist cops ofbrutality and leaves us hanging.

There are a few laughs, much dramatic and over-dramatic acting but inthe end you are left with relatively little to take with you on leaving thetheatre. Director Jamie Robinson seems to have done his level best does hisbest to liven up the arguments but there is not enough substance to workwith.        

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Copy That by Jason Sherman opened on November 13 and willplay until December 6, 2019 at the Tarragon Theatre, 30 Bridgman Ave. Toronto,Ontario.  www.tarragontheatre.com