Artword Theatre has completed editing the full-length performance video of “Walter” recorded on March 12, 2020, starring Sean Emberley as Walter. The YouTube premiere release was Thursday July 30, 2020 at 7:30 pm. The video is now available to watch any time. Runs 70 minutes.
Watch the Walter video on Artword Theatre YouTube channel
Some advance comments for the video: “Wonderful.” “Moving.” “Incredible actor.” “So powerful.” “Absolutely wonderful!” “A powerful film.”
Reviews of the stage performance March 2020:
#1 Review Mar 11, 2020 by Jeff Mahoney, The Hamilton Spectator
“Walter is a moving look at schizophrenia. … Sean Emberley, in the title role, is engrossing, so completely does he inhabit this complex, confusing but ultimately compelling character. You feel not so much that you’re seeing him onstage but passing him on the street. Emberley’s remarkable achievement is that he lifts our engagement with Walter beyond the stare of curiosity, albeit sympathetic, into a trance in which we begin to identify with the struggle of his being. It’s partly the play of his eyes and the mobile features of his face and his movements across the stage, by turns agitated and sedate. It’s also his voice, wounded but also strangely hypnotic. And aside from his own, there are the voices “in his head,” as the expression goes, which we get to hear along with him, thanks to the soundscape by Dave Gould. …
…We get a vivid sense of the immense difficulties of Walter’s life but also of his humanity and his uneasy truce with life, …. The play is informed by playwright Dawson’s 50 years in psychiatry, treating schizophrenia. And the words are lit with both knowledge and compassion, which comes through as Walter soliloquizes himself over the barriers we put up against the ‘different.’ This very powerful production is directed by Ronald Weihs.”
#2 Review March 12, 2020 by Tamara Kamermans View Magazine
“… In the central role, [Sean Emberley] is captivating as he embodies the many ages of Walter. As a young man, we see his angst and then terror upon realizing is trajectory into the mental health system, then, as he ages, his new struggles with the system and the balance of medication. Emberley never once over sentimentalizes; instead, he allows the emotional reaction to resonate with the audience member. He simply tells the story as a grippingly real person. He leaves the richness and the ironies to his audience to ruminate. …
His performance is like a poem. It’s presented with simplicity but has as many meanings as there are seats in the audience. He’s like the face of everyman with a mental illness. … It’s impossible not be emotionally touched by his presentation and each and every audience member will be remembering their own Walter as the stage lights go down.”