CALGARY - I have to admit I was far more impressed with Simon Mallet's production of Catherine Banks' Governor General's Award-winning drama Bone Cage than I am with the script itself.

When playwriting was in its infancy in Canada, plays such as Bone Cage were known as kitchen sink melodramas.

By comparison, Banks' Bone Cage seems unfocused. It's uncertain whose story this tale of a highly dysfunctional family and equally dysfunctional relationships really is.

Given Braden Griffiths' volcanic performance as Jamie, a young man who hates everything about his life, it would seem he is the focus.

Yet, Helen Knight as Jamie's possible sibling is so intense and edgy that her plight demands our attention.

Griffiths and Knight must share the stage with powerhouse Paul Cowling as the crazed father, who is obsessed with resurrecting his dead and favourite son. As the young man having a sexual-identity crisis, Mathieu Bourassa has moments of genuine angst.

Mallet's forte as a director is staging stark, intimate emotional battles and his efforts are what make Bone Cage compelling.

What Mallet and his set designer Leon Schwesinger have done with the theatre is truly commendable because they force us to be part of every outburst and every soul-searching moment.

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