Ariel Dorfman’s dark and daring drama Death and the Maiden provides a thrilling conclusion to The Gladstone’s 2012 season. The play deals with the stark, painful transition to democracy of a former dictatorship through the eyes of three tormented people. The dictatorship of an unnamed Latin American country has fallen, and now former torturers, murderers and oppressors live quietly among their neighbours – many of them physically and psychologically lacerated victims of torture.
When Paulina’s husband brings home the Good Samaritan who helped him when his car broke down, she believes she recognizes the voice of the torturer from her nightmarish ordeal under the now-fallen repressive regime. The Samaritan is taken prisoner and in turn tortured by his former victim, with the baffled husband looking on. Death and the Maiden is a stirring play about innocence and presumption of guilt, vengeance, paranoia, and the ambiguities of evil.
The Gladstone production features Geneviève Sirois, Chris Ralph and Ottawa’s celebrated master thespian Paul Rainville (recently seen in the TV-movies Metal Tornado with Lou Diamond Phillips and Secrets from Her Past with Antonio Sabato Jr.)
Death and the Maiden, directed by Craig Walker, runs from May 2 to 19 at The Gladstone, 910 Gladstone Avenue, Ottawa, Tuesdays-Saturdays @ 8pm, with matinees Saturdays @ 3pm. Tickets are $39 for adults, $34 for seniors and $23 for students. Group rates are available.