Victoria playwright Joan MacLeod was born and raised in North Vancouver, so it’s not surprising that two of the characters in her 2013 drama The Valley would hail from her home turf.
In the Arts Club Theatre Company’s production of MacLeod’s play, Kerry Sandomirsky takes on the role of North Shore mom Sharon, whose 18-year-old son Connor (Daniel Doheny), a formerly high-achieving high school student, has just returned home from the University of Calgary with anxiety and depression.
“When he comes home for Thanksgiving he stuns me by telling me that he is dropping out,” Sandomirsky explains. “I am thrust from empty-nesting into caretaking for someone who becomes increasingly ill, so a big switch from the stage of life I was expecting to go into.”
The catalyst driving the story forward is an incident in which Connor has a psychotic breakdown on the SkyTrain. He’s arrested at Joyce-Collingwood Station and is injured in the process.
“I interpret the police treatment of my son as excessive,” Sandomirsky says. “I become a bit of an advocate, obviously for my son, but also for how police deal with mental illness and the challenges they have.”
The arrest connects Sharon and Connor with the two other characters in the ensemble piece: Dan (Robert Salvador), the police officer involved in the SkyTrain incident, and his wife Janie (Pippa Mackie), whose post-partum depression is driving a wedge through their relationship. The couple lives in Maple Ridge.
Sharon soon learns that she doesn’t know the full story of what happened the day of her son’s arrest.
“I leap to a conclusion because my son is injured, but I soon learn that there are a lot more extenuating circumstances,” Sandomirsky says. “When I learn how complex the real event actually was, I invite the police officer and his wife to a healing circle.”
The Valley is rife with topical themes, one of which is the rocky relationship between law enforcers and people with mental illness. The play examines these themes through the lens of two families, both struggling to stay connected in the face of their respective challenges.
Sandomirsky was immediately drawn to the script as a long-time fan of MacLeod. She performed in the award-winning playwright’s first full-length play Toronto, Mississippi in Regina back in 1990.
“It was one of the best theatrical experiences of my life,” she says, describing MacLeod’s writing as mature, witty, and hopeful, without being overly sentimental.
The Valley, she says, does not villainize police or victimize the mentally ill, but rather looks at the issue of care and public safety from a balanced perspective. In fact, Sandomirsky says she has a deeper understanding of police work after getting to know the Dan character.
“It just flipped my frame of reference. I felt like I was educated in some way about the challenges of policing in this city,” she says.
Directed by Mindy Parfitt, this production features an urban, pared-back set with a raked stage, meaning the floor slopes upwards from front to back so the actors appear at different levels. That’s proven a challenge for Sandomirsky, who had a stage accident back in 2003 that left her with a chronic balance problem.
“This production is a bit like acting on a tilt-a-whirl. I’m off balance all the time. I’m wearing heels. I’m going upstage, downstage, so there’s never a moment in the play that my brain isn’t having to recalibrate.”
She’s hopeful that being a bit physically unstable will be an asset to her performance.
“In some ways maybe I’ll be able to weave it into my character in that emotionally I’m off balance,” she says.
Although The Valley takes place in the Lower Mainland, it’s a story that could easily take place anywhere, Sandomirsky notes. That said, Arts Club audiences will likely appreciate the local settings and may even find some humour in the familiarity. Â
“It could happen in any city, but I always find it particularly delightful when I know the references.”
The Valley runs until May 7 at the Arts Club’s Granville Island Stage. Tickets at or by calling 604-687-1644.
