76 Centimetres

By Xaiver Michael Campbell | Feb. 6-9, 2025 | LSPU Hall, St. John’s, NL

Reviewed by Lisa Moore

Xaiver Michael Campbell’s debut play 76 Centimetres begins in a small basement apartment, the home of lovers Abe and Samson, who are about to be trapped in the dark by Snowmagedden, a.k.a. the storm of the century.

Samson (Jamal Weekes) and Abe (Blake Pyne) are in the process of helping Samson’s mother negotiate the Canadian immigration lottery so that she can join Samson in Newfoundland and become a Canadian citizen. Samson has become dependent on Abe who is more adroit when navigating the miasma of immigration forms. Abe is also more financially stable – proof of such stability a requirement when seeking permanent residency.

Abe, a devoted son, is constantly calling his own mother to update her on the ravages of the storm, and on the ever-widening cracks in his relationship with Samson. He is also fully invested in helping Samson’s mother. But the unequal financial situation between the two Jewish men, and the punishing immigration policies that Samson, who is Black and Jamaican born must contend with are a point of tension between them.

There is also the question of Ruby, a close female friend of Samson’s and one-time (according to Samson, just the one time) lover. Abe’s jealousy over Ruby is cloying and ultimately controlling. But is it also understandable? Does it perhaps make him all the more interested in helping Samson’s mother immigrate? These are the some of the subtle ambiguities Campbell teases out as the storm rages around the men.

Campbell’s play is an emotionally gripping, often hilarious queer love story going irrevocably wrong with the clip of a gale force wind. A stylish dramedy cocooned in the confluence of the most critical social justice issues of our day: the spectre of climate crisis; the treacherous entanglement and systemic racism of Canadian immigration policies; institutionalized homophobia; and ever-increasing class divisions.  Campbell explores how all of these things touch down in the intimate love life of these two essentially very good guys, both of whom are capable of loving each other hugely and nevertheless must watch it all fall apart, no matter how hard they try to hold it together.

76 Centrimetres is about power and losing power. And the one percent. Or at least the one percent of power left on your phone battery when the blackout hits. It’s about breaking free of a big, life-threatening party/drug-fueled scene in Montreal and coming to live in St. John’s, Newfoundland and also breaking free of co-dependency.

Campbell’s characters are by turns tender, hurt, angry, loving, horny (Samson) and not interested in sex right at that moment (Abe), and frustrated (Samson) and trembling with the fear of not being loved enough (Abe) and needing to get out at all costs (Samson), and at very key moments, when insults fly and the hearts of these two characters are raw and exposed and the lights go out: these characters are electric.

Dramaturge and director, Santiago Guzman, who also produced this play through his theatre company Todos, has brilliantly orchestrated these shifts in mood, riding the spectrum from comedy to pathos and all points in between with tremendous skill.

There’s a tango and some kissing; there’s the absolutely beautiful and funny moment when the front door opens and it becomes necessary to start flicking handfuls of snow away from the very top of the threshold. This mimed flicking away of snow brought back the very real astonishment and danger of what happens when the earth decides it has had enough and spews wrath.

Whatever of Abe and Samson – actors Weekes and Pyne are a match made in heaven. A performance by both that is intuitive, playful, and comedically rich. Both are gifted with an extraordinary sense of timing. It’s the intuitive ability to play off each other, like the spontaneous synchronicity of their brief waltz, that makes this performance magnetic. The reason I have left mentioning the acting until last is because I forgot, quite often, it was acting. I was alive with extreme discomfort while this relationship fell apart before my eyes. I know there’s a snowstorm, but the chills I felt were because of the nuanced acting that made Campbell’s script leap off the page.

The truth of the emotional tumult, the longing, and ever-so-familiar, mundane but ongoing irritation of different housecleaning preferences (some people can put up with food stains on the floor, others simply cannot) and the claustrophobia that intensifies as the storm outside turns a cocoon into a pressure cooker made me stumble out of the theater into the cold night air deeply moved, hugging myself against the weather.