There is an accident on the road. Two souls appear from exaggerated mock-ups of road curves. The play called Down Dangerous Passes Road was recently performed at La Chapelle in Montreal in an attempt to introduce Francophone plays to English audiences and it was performed very well.

Two souls appear synchronously out of exaggerated bends. One suspects foul play as the two actors appear because of the unequal chatter characterizing their vibrant encounter. One wonders how they could be in the same space and time with their watches out of synch. Except for this detail and the fact that one notices he is covered in blood the audience has no knowledge of where these characters actually are. We hear them recite bits and pieces of their father’s poetry in a vain attempt to capture some moments of the past, perhaps because their dad has passed on and they were about to relive some of those moments through the narrative.

Three bodies appear piled up on the road at the end of the story after the men had finally witnessed what vehicle they were up against. The bodies, framed by giant bends that they supposedly emerged from lay atop repetitions of meanings words as if to relate that their lives were meaningless now. And one of them was about to get married at their final destination.

The writing matched a chant saying that their lives were running in circles and yet held straight lines. This was yet another clue that their lives had dematerialized and they were now spirits, although we do not really know that until they see their own accident. And on their way to piecing events up to that moment the middle child admits an inappropriate love towards his younger and the oldest is never credits for the knowledge he had. The youngest is blamed for having urged his father to enter a river when he could not swim and as a result the boys haggle over their misdeeds and failings. And they try to make some sense of where they are going in life but there is no direction now. This is a must see play.