“How do you feel today?” A simple sounding question, yet one which we never truly ask in full because the answer will be more difficult than we’re usually willing to express. Solomon Goudsward’s How To Feel looks at the complexities of our emotional lives through the eyes of a down-on-his-luck young man and his close friends. Though brimming with ideas, How To Feel feels more like a film than it does a play. A valiant first effort for Goudsward and Sawdust Theatre, How To Feel, like its main character, has a great deal more growing to do.

It’s difficult to explain the plot of How To Feel, as it really focuses on the inner life of its main character, Sam (played by Liam Armstrong), with very little in the way of conflict or resolution. While we do witness Sam’s difficulties in dating, and eventually striving for a good relationship with Vanessa (Miranda Wiseman), that situation is brought up within the last half of the story, and it’s difficult to tell how it will actually work out. Though How To Feel ends in a traditional rom-com style everyone-gets-together trope, given what we’ve witnessed previous to that, it leaves you with an unsettled feeling.

How To Feel feels much more like a movie than it did a stage play; it actually left me wondering if that’s how it started out and then was adapted to be done on stage. With quick cuts, plenty of blackouts, and short, disjointed scenes, it definitely had more of a student film vibe than it did a polished piece of theatre. I think How To Feel thought that it had a lot to say, however without fully fleshed out characters, or a particularly likeable protagonist, it was hard to get on board with whatever message this play thought it was projecting. I think that’s part of what was lacking for me, and why I was left with that unsettled feeling at the end, was that I couldn’t find the message: I thought that there were about three different ending points, which would have at least given some context for what had previously occurred, but when those didn’t end up being the finale I then was left to wonder what else the play was leading us towards? If there was an answer, it certainly wasn’t made clear.

I have to give credit to Hope Goudsward and Cole Munden for the intense emotional paths their characters take in How To Feel. They have a very delicate and intimate scene which then jarringly leads to Goudward’s character Phoebe telling Jamie (Munden) about a sexual encounter she had as a young girl. To go from first kiss to heartbreaking confessions was a huge swing in moods, and yet the two of them handled it perfectly. While I would have loved to be able to hear Jamie’s full response, as some of it was whispered quite quietly, this scene becomes the crux of their storylines and it was definitely powerful.

Interspersed in these personal stories, the audience witnesses both Sam and Phoebe going to therapy…actually the same therapist, played by salman. This would never be allowed; as soon as Johnathan, the therapist, catches on to the fact that Phoebe is talking about the same Sam that he already treats, he should have been recommending her to another therapist right away. While these scenes let us into the inner lives of the characters, I found myself being pulled out of the moment by the unrealistic elements.

Though How To Feel made good use of the space, has definitely been rehearsed and is well performed, the content itself is where it falls flat for me. Hopefully this production will serve as a stepping stone to other, more fleshed out versions, or maybe even a film, in the future.

How To Feel runs at the Annex Theatre until March 1. For more information and tickets, visit: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/how-to-feel-a-new-canadian-play-tickets-1977980126805?aff=ebdsshcopyurl&utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=

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Cover Photo: Cole Munden, Hope Goudsward, and Liam Armstrong. Photo by Lilly Logue.

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