Steven Truscott's case has been of interest to me for several years. I remember learning about it at a young age and being appalled that the Canadian justice system would sentence a fourteen year old boy to death. Thankfully, his death sentence was commuted to life in prison, or else this case would be an even darker blemish on Canadian justice. As it is, the case was a serious miscarriage of justice.
This isn't a history lesson on the case, though. It's a review of the play.
Innocence Lost is told mostly from the point of view of Sarah, a fictional character. She is a young and carefree kid at the beginning of the play, whose world quickly gets turned upside down. At first, when Lynne Harper goes missing, Sarah believes that Lynne is okay, off having an adventure. Then, Lynne's body is found. Steven is the last person to have seen Lynne Harper, so he's repeatedly questioned. Then he's charged with rape and murder. Sarah believes in his innocence, defends him to her parents. Act one ends with the trial and the conviction. Throughout the trial, Sarah struggles with what she believes, until she is convinced that Steven is guilty.
During the second act, Isabel LeBourdais, the author of The Trial of Steven Truscott, is asking questions, advocating for Steven's innocence. She attempts an interview with Sarah, but Sarah remains convinced that Steven is guilty. Eventually the book is published, and becomes a national sensation. Everyone is now doubting Steven's guilt, whereas in the first act they doubted his innocence. During the second act, Sarah learns that Steven is out of jail, that he got married and had children. She too grows up and has children. Towards the end of the play, Sarah's fourteen year old son asks her if she thinks Steven is guilty. Her son is learning about the case in school, and he is convinced Steven is innocent. She doesn't answer her son's questions, but she tells the audience about the last time she saw Steven Truscott, as an adult.
Outside the door - there was a man standing. He looked like he was taking a little fresh air, trying to find a place for quiet. I said a quick hello and tried to get past him without disturbing him too much but he looked at me straight on and my heart stopped. Just like it did all those years ago in 1959 when I would steal looks at him through the cracks between my fingers. I paused for a moment and my eyes looked straight into his. And what I saw was innocence.
(Cooper, 2009)
The play ends with a slide displaying the information that Steven was acquitted in 2007, and the original trial was declared a miscarriage of justice.
This play was poorly written, it would be extremely difficult to stage. There are 47 characters, for 10 actors. It seems as though most of the actors are on stage for most of the play. Even if they weren't, costume changes would be difficult to coordinate for so many different characters. So, I get the feeling that it would be extremely difficult to tell who the characters are for the most part. The character names are used infrequently. Some are just called "woman" or "boy" ... and "woman" is meant to be played by the same actor who is playing Mrs. Harper. I find this to be problematic.
There is no action in the play either. It is all talking, speculating, reporting. The characters rarely interact, for the most part they talk to the audience.
I suppose it should be called narration. Even in the scenes where characters are talking to each other, they break the fourth wall to narrate, giving insight into what they are actually thinking.
I am not against breaking the fourth wall, but in this play, it just feels like lazy writing. It feels like Cooper was too lazy to give the characters subtext, so she put it in text. I think she should have had more faith in the actors. There was nothing for them to play with below the surface, because everything they're feeling, they're saying.
What the play does manage to invoke is the distrust that arises in a community affected by tragedy. The way the rumour mill churns. The way people lie for attention, for control. The fear that spreads until anyone can be suspect... even an innocent fourteen year old boy.
The innocence lost mentioned in the title is not Steven Truscott's innocence, but the innocence of a community that doesn't band together in the face of tragedy, but rather gets torn apart.
