Hard Truths About Bullying Surface in “Late Company” at Dundas Little Theatre

By: Emily R. Zarevich, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Burlington Local-News.ca

Warning: This article contains mentions of suicide.

A couple has set their dining room table elegantly for dinner and is waiting for their guests to arrive. The silverware is sparkling, the napkins are folded neatly, and the wine bottles have been opened. Shrimp cocktail and pasta are on the menu. Their guests are (unfashionably) late, and the couple wait with gritted teeth. This is not going to be a normal, pleasant dinner party with friends. They and their guests, who are anything but friends, have something of vital importance to discuss.

On April 24, 2026, Dundas Little Theatre premiered their production of Canadian playwright Jordan Tannahill’s emotionally intense drama Late Company to an audience who understood from the moment they sat down that they were not in for an easy theatre-viewing experience. Directed by Francesca Brugnano, who is well-known locally for her aptitude for character manoeuvring, Late Company is an uncomfortable but captivating exploration of all the sides of an issue that is tragically prevalent in our modern world: school bullying on and off the internet.

Tannahill’s story concerns two families brought together for a night of therapeutic grief-sharing that quickly turns into a showdown, as both factions insist neither is the guilty party for how events played out. Deborah (Deanna Mae Lloyd) and Michael (James Vezina) are in mourning for their late teenage son Joel, an accomplished young man who had a promising future. Tamara (Christine Marchetti) and Bill (Timothy Hevesi) are the parents of another teenage boy, Curtis (Andrew Plasky). A year ago, Curtis’s bullying of Joel, a closeted gay teen, contributed to Joel’s suicide. Curtis has come to dinner at Deborah and Michael’s home, designed by Graham Clements, to apologize.

All of the actors can be commended for taking on such a powerful, challenging script full of relentless conflict and performing it with admirable skill and grace. For ninety straight minutes, with no intermission, the characters blame, accuse, and insult each other over the circumstances of Joel’s suicide like a standoff in a courtroom. If the audience’s blood was boiling as they watched, the cast’s blood must have been boiling over as they brought this battle to life. Lloyd, in particular, gives a dynamic performance as Joel’s vengeful mother, Deborah. The character’s raw rage is a marvel to watch. Her fury turned on her son’s bully makes the trembling teenage boy shrink down to size.

Plasky, as Curtis, a talented young actor only in grade eleven, plays a convincing, repentant bully, visibly humbled by a year of regret and sleepless nights. The character, who looks exhausted, sits with his head bowed, his eyes downcast, flinching as the adults fire verbal projectiles at each other and, eventually, at him. The character invites equal parts audience hatred for his actions and pity for the guilt he’s going to have to carry for the rest of his life. His parents did not raise him well. He was practically set up to err horrendously. His father is a despicable bigot. His in-denial mother relies on self-help books and toxic positivity for navigating life and is generally clueless.

Late Company is a story about school bullying, but it’s also a story about the roots of juvenile animosity between teenagers; they learn it from their parents. It becomes overwhelmingly apparent early on in the play that none of the adult characters are emotionally mature enough to communicate healthily, accept responsibility, and facilitate peace between themselves. Deborah and Michael become enemies with Tamara and Bill just as easily and quickly as Curtis and Joel became enemies at school. The dinner meeting itself is a doomed idea from the start. Though the premise is well-intentioned, a professional counsellor should have been present to mediate between the two feuding families.

Clements’ set, a monochrome living room and dining room decorated in the modern style, is effectively bleak and dreary. The lack of colour in Deborah and Michael’s home reflects the lack of colour in their lives since the death of their only child. The rooms are adorned with steelwork art pieces created by Deborah within the context of the play, but were actually built by a set construction and decoration team led by Blair Smith and Marie Dickie. The art pieces are technically impressive but have very little vibrancy to them, which is fitting because Deborah outright states in the script that her art does not serve any therapeutic purposes, nor does it fill in the time previously occupied by motherhood. The cold art pieces are scattered about as a means to distract both the home’s inhabitants and their visitors from the fact that the house is missing much warmer things like family photos, Joel’s awards adorning the walls, and his physical presence, as he’s now only a ghost haunting the space.

The raised voices, the fierce spite, and the antagonism of Late Company is exhausting to watch and painful to process. But it is a necessary pain. A play like Late Company forces all of us to confront the deplorable sides of our personalities and attitudes that we try to mask, by holding up a mirror to reflect the self-centredness and ignorance in our society that allow these situations to happen. Bullying needs to be stopped, and the end of it starts with families in their own homes, paying attention and properly educating their children.

Performances of Late Company will continue at Dundas Little Theatre until Mother’s Day on Sunday, May 10, 2026. After the company leaves the table and the curtain closes on this dismaying tragedy, Dundas Little Theatre will be attempting something much more uplifting in the fall with a production of the outrageously chaotic comedy The Play That Goes Wrong by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields. Keep checking the Dundas Little Theatre’s website for updates and ticket sales.