The Clockmaker

Stephen Massicotte’s The Clockmaker is a subtle reflection on time, memory and love that opens the 40^th anniversary season at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. By turns unsettling and sweet, this metaphorical mystery and romance has an original tone that sits halfway between Franz Kafka and Frank Capra. The Ontario born playwright brings to stage a fine reflection on what we are and how we feel in regard to love. After all, can we reduce loving to what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget? And how many ways of grasping the dizzy struggle of the clockmaker: “Nothing should be impossible if one is truly an artist”… Christian Goutsis is just great in the role of the clockmaker: his anxiety and humbleness are genuine and heartfelt. He managed to lead me to a place where I was facing my own vulnerabilities and clumsiness and watching the fine line between normality and mental illness. Frieda – a gifted performer too – appears like a split character that puts up with a brutal husband while searching escape in dreaming and fantasies. She playfully enters a love story with Herr Mann, the clockmaker, under the rain smelling fresh bread and perfumes of the park. Their story is out of time and memories..

Scene from The Clockmaker

Towards the end of the play, the bully husband mad with jealousy strangles Frieda and Herr Mann, and afterwards, desperately cries and sinks into madness. Time suddenly stops. With no sad memories of the past, the protagonists meet in the afterlife and seem to remember only what is pleasant. But the miracle is not to last. The big clock starts ticking again: “time is given back to people to live”. However, for Frieda and Herr Mann, eternity begins. Beyond life, they can start over the story and write it once again the way they wish…

Hope is likely to overcome the tragedy of death and madness. At least, this was my feeling when leaving the theatre. The soft laugher of the audience between rounds of applause maybe confirmed it in a way…

A puzzling set of a play if you choose to puzzle yourself for … Thanksgiving.