Quebequois playwright Michel Marc Bouchard has gone to great lengths to ensure that there is nothing to distract his audience from the essence of his play Down Dangerous Passes Road. In fact, this seventy-five minute show is uninterrupted by an intermission, and audience members are not granted admittance into the real world, as the only means of exiting is through the pebble road on stage.

While the Factory Theatre (125 Bathurst) often gives the impression that its stage is a shoebox, Down Dangerous Passes Road is so captivating that it somehow extends its arms to touch every soul in the audience. The stage is nothing more than a rocky road blanketed with pebbles and gravel, and other than a wrecked car and the actors, the play is very naked.

The plot of the play involves three estranged brothers standing at different crossroads in their lives. Young Carl (Brandon McGibbon) is running late for his wedding. Ambrose (David Jansen), the self-loathing middle brother, has done a noble deed by reluctantly agreeing to attend Carl’s wedding. Victor (Tony Munch), the brawny eldest brother, has managed to persuade his younger siblings to partake in a fishing trip at his new fishing camp on Dangerous Passes Road. Unfortunately, the brothers’ truck is involved in an accident and rolls over six, seven, eight times close to where their father drowned fifteen years ago. The question that now lurks in the air is whether they are alive, dead, or perhaps in a state of bafflement. Each brother brings to life the pangs of pain and perhaps confusion that have haunted him in their fifteen-year absence from one another. Although these siblings were molded from the same clay, they have taken different forms. Indeed, this is a story of class conflict. Ambrose is a self-proclaimed “homosexual snob” who refers to Carl as “suburban trash.” Meanwhile, Victor has silently taken on the role of their late drunken father, who desperately wants to do something positive now.

The actors did a remarkable job, considering the enormous pressure of performing without the aid of props.

Each stroke they make together leaves the audience filled with delight and yearning to watch more of their mastered skills. Indeed, there are no theatrical stumbling blocks on this road; it is smooth sailing for the cast from here on in.