Powerful, deeply moving and fast-paced, Casey & Diana is a beautiful piece of theatre that shouldn’t be missed.
Halifax actor/singer/composer Garry Williams, as AIDS patient Thomas, gives the kind of performance that would make even the shyest person jump up and yell, “Bravo!”
Casey & Diana, by Nick Green and at Neptune’s studio stage to May 18, is on its surface about Princess Diana’s historic visit in 1991 to patients in Casey House, Ontario’s first free-standing AIDS hospice. In holding hands with people dying from a terrifying illness, she was a radical figure changing how people looked at AIDS.
Diana floats about as a saintly icon characteristically tall and leggy and with the proper head tilt and a cool, kind voice, as portrayed by Montreal theatre artist Rebecca Gibian.
Green’s award-winning play is not really about Diana or the AIDS crisis. It’s about compassion as the patients and caregivers struggle to do their best – to be their best – when they are scared, alone and suffering. It’s also very funny. (But, be forewarned, take Kleenex.)
Williams plays the central character who has outlived several roommates but is trying to stay alive just seven days until Diana’s visit, a cause for great excitement at the hospice.
The Halifax actor breathes glorious life into a person who is funny, bitchy, lovable, deeply wounded and capable of wounding.
Green’s fully-crafted, plot-rich script, directed with passion, insight and good timing by Richie Wilcox, has arcs for each of the four characters in Thomas’s world.
The cast is lovely: Susan Stackhouse as the super cheerful, middle-aged volunteer Marjorie, who gets a little too close emotionally; Alex Wierzbicki as Andre, the young AIDS patient, angry, alienated from his family and unable to accept the situation he is in; and Koumbie as the unflappable administrator/nurse Vera, perceived as too harsh by the others but she, too, has her own pain.
Stephanie MacDonald brings all her fierce energy to Thomas’s sister, driven to fury by a toxic tangle of fear and love.
Casey & Diana could be set in a cardboard box without costumes or lights because its power lies in the writing and the acting. However, the play is suitably set by Scott Penner in a slightly claustrophic, white, medical space of a hospice room with two beds and a window that we never see out of – it’s not the kind of play for a lighting designer to revel in window views. There is a flat space in front of the room where the staff converses.
The whiteness of the space is a great canvas for costume designer Diego Cavedon Dias to introduce vibrant colour in Marjorie’s outrageously bright and floral prints and Thomas’s sister Pauline’s 1990s’ outfits. The look of Diana is perfect with the short blond wig and accurate pale pink and blue suits nearly identical to those she wore at the time.
Lighting designer Leigh Ann Vardy works in subtle shifts and layers for day and night scenes with some fabulous colour at the end.
Also on the creative team are: sound designer Aaron Collier, fight director Karen Bassett, dialect coach Sarah English, stage manager Kevin Olson, assistant stage manager Gina Thornhill and Chrysalis director Zoë Comeau.
Compassion is underfire these days for being weak and “woke,” and, of course, it has never been in vogue with dictators and the hard right. The AIDS crisis may seem long ago but the same qualities of humanity — grace in dying, overcoming fear, loving one another – were recently challenged during COVID-19 and are always being challenged. This play makes you think and ask yourself, “How compassionate am I? Which character represents me?”
Casey & Diana won the Toronto Theatre Critics’ Award for best new Canadian play for the 2023-2024 season in its Soulpepper production after it premiered at the Stratford Festival. The play runs for about two and a half hours including a 15-minute intermission. It is recommended for ages 12 and up and it comes with this warning: “Strong language, realistic depiction of epileptic attack, medical needle use, brief depiction of blood, & discussions around death and dying.” Tickets are at: https://www.neptunetheatre.com/
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NS reviews 
sounds like a must-see!!
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Fabulous review- thank you Elissa for delivering all the deets
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Another sensitive, all encompassing piece, as I’ve come to expect from your reviews, Elissa. Thank you.
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