When you first walk into the dark and dingy theatre-space in the National Arts Centre, you realize very quickly that A Room of Wolves is a low-budget production. The play is part of Ottawa’s Fringe Festival, a week and a half forum that strives to unite artists and audiences in a welcoming, creative environment. Although the two do feel united, that may only be because of the cheap, plastic school chairs that sit on wooden risers only inches from the stage itself.
A Room of Wolves is a student play created by Gregory-Yves Fénélon and produced by Blood Moon Productions, set in a university club meeting room. The characters are six stereotypical university students – the overachiever, the religious-nut, the sorority chick, the social justice activist, the alternative freak, and the secret druggie. Cue chaos.
The premise seems simple enough: it is the end of the school year, and the Association of Student Organizations is informed that an extra $11,423 in funding must be dispersed due to a budgeting error. Each character represents a different area of student life – Greek life, cultural clubs, etc. – and each advocates for their own section to receive the funding. Obviously, the six juxtaposed characters cannot come to an agreement, and arguments ensue. Just as they plan to let the matter be until the new school year, a lock-down forces them to stay in the club room for the remainder of the play.
A Room of Wolves has a few major shortcomings. The script is amateurish, and as actors are establishing their characters at the beginning of the play, conversation seems unnatural and forced. The characters themselves are cardboard cut-outs of university student stereotypes, and until the main plot-point is revealed, the play itself seems extremely slow. At times it seems as if conflict is forced and pointless, not really contributing to character development.
The saving grace of this play is not the writing, but the actors themselves. Each actor plays their roles extremely well, reacting to the drama in a realistic fashion. The humour in this comedy comes from the way they deliver their lines and overemphasize their actions, becoming lovable in their cliché characters. They really grow as a cast from the beginning to end, and eventually their characters do become just the slightest bit believable.
The end of the play comes as a surprise to all. Very little progress is made on the actual plot point throughout the on-stage arguments and conflicts, so it seems as if the conclusion is pulled from thin air. Near the end of the play, the now somewhat-believable characters begin to take on strange, unnatural mannerisms and quirks, which although may have been added for comedic effect, do nothing but confuse the audience even more. The play ends in a rushed way that seems to leave the characters in the same way we found them, without a resolution.
In all, A Room of Wolves is a very obvious student attempt at a low-budget comedic production, but smart casting choices allow audience members to fall prey to the silly world for the play’s duration.
