People, Places and Things – Review of 2025 Coalmine Theatre Production

Do you want to see great acting? I do not use the word great lightly and if the answer is yes you should go to the Coal Mine Theatre in Toronto and see People Places and Things with Louise Lambert. More detail below.
People Places and Things is a powerful play by Duncan Macmillan about Emma (Louise Lambert), an actor who is seriously addicted to drugs and alcohol. She goes to a rehab centre looking for a quick fix and a letter saying that she is capable of working. She finds out that a rehab program would take weeks, perhaps longer where she must submit to group therapy and honesty. There are half a dozen other addicts at the center as well as a therapist and doctor. And Emma must deal with her parents as well.
Emma’s addiction causes her to be aggressive, arrogant, unsocial and angry. Lambert goes through the gamut of these emotions or states with incredible power and display of emotions. She hallucinates and five other “Emmas” appear on stage and imitate her steps as the lights flicker. It is hallucination perfectly illustrated. She reaches excruciating emotional levels, excruciating for Lambert and the audience.
Fiona Reid plays the doctor and therapist as cool-headed and efficient professionals who know what they are doing and make the demands of what is expected for rehabilitation to work. Reid and Olive Dennis also play Emma’s parents. their daughter’s addiction seems to have caused a deep rift and her attempt at reunification is unsuccessful.
Dennis also plays Paul, one of the patients and he appears as a loud, half-naked and obnoxious addict who runs deliriously around the stage. The other adducts are a varied if deeply damaged group of people who give an outstanding job of ensemble acting. They are Nickesha Garrick, Farhang Ghajar, Matthew Gouveia, Sam Grist, Sarah Murphy-Dyson, Kwaku Okyere and Kaleb Tekeste.
The tiny Coal Mine Theatre has seats on two sides of the house with a small playing area in the middle. There are chairs, stools and other pieces of furniture brought on and taken off by the cast as needed. Steve Lucas is the stage designer. There is rich and varied use of lighting to indicate the emotional trauma of the characters. The Lighting Designers and Lighting Programmer are Bonnie Beecher and Jeff Pybus.
Movement Director Alyssa Martin handles the complex actions of the cast in the playing area, on and off the stage and bringing on and removing props. It looks like a complex operation, especially in a theatre that is small with very few places to go to. It is as much choreography as movement direction and is marvelous work.
The cumulative effect is like being struck with a tsunami of trauma and emotion. Lambert’s stunning performance along with the rest of the cast grabs you and holds you in thrall for the duration of the performance. This is rare and extraordinary theatre.
Director Diana Bentley displays stunning directorial talent in putting a complex show together and instilling the enormous discipline required to bring to maintain the high emotional pitch throughout. A great production.
People, Places And Things by Duncan Macmillan continues until March 7, 2025, at the Coal Mine Theatre, 2076 Danforth Ave. Toronto, (northwest corner of Woodbine and Danforth). www.coalminetheatre.com/

Kwaku Okyere, Matthew Gouveia, Farhang Ghajar and Louise Lambert.
Photo: Elena Emer

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