STAGE REVIEW: 7 Stories, lots of laughs

By Caroline Elias, Staff Contributor

The play 7 Stories, by Morris Panych, tells the story of a man (played by Tom Barnett, who was Hamlet at Neptune in 2000) on the ledge of a seven-story high building.  He contemplates jumping, when seven different people living in the apartment building pop their heads out and tell him their stories.

The set, designed by Ken MacDonald, was well made: it shows the façade of an apartment building, with seven windows, each presumably leading into a different apartment.  The set itself is slanted, so theatre-goers should aim to snag one of the middle-theatre seats rather than the front rows. With clouds and blue sky painted across the set, the changing of time was marked by the appearance of stars; it was a simple and ingenious way of showing the coming evening.

With only five actors, each doubling up on characters, the play was laugh-out-loud funny. Its humour lies in the fact that none of the characters seems to care much that this man is about to commit suicide: they are all much too preoccupied with their own lives and stories.

Each of these stories in themselves brings up questions of importance, and it is because of that that the play manages to not dwell too much on the lack of information about the man himself. Between the 100-year-old woman and the man that keeps trying in vain to kill his wife, the audience is captivated by the different narratives. The actors did a great job playing a variety of roles, and it’s truly an enjoyable way to spend an evening.

7 Stories is playing at the Neptune Theater until November 14th.