Everyone has that one nosy neighbour. Perhaps it’s you. But in this play, whatever you think you know … you really don’t.
Written by Nicolas Billon and produced by Green Light Arts, The Neighbours introduces us to a residential community whose placid surface masks deeper truths of broken love, entrapment and suspicion. The play follows the lives of Simon Armstrong (Tony Nappo), Denise Armstrong (Ordena Stephens-Thompson) and Au Yeung Wei (Richard Tse) as they grapple with the aftermath of a young girl’s disappearance from their neighbourhood. To help us unravel the events, the three characters speak directly to us, breaking the fourth wall.
This is a bold strategy: the audience effectively becomes players in what is far from a game, and closer to an indigestible reality. In its directness, The Neighbours pushes us to ask ourselves the questions the play evokes.
It’s not a comfortable place to be.
The stage is split into two, representing the households of Mr. Au Yeung Wei and the Armstrongs. Kelly Wolf’s sharp set and the lighting by Paul Cegys work hand in hand to create eerie tension that heightens the stakes. A favourite element of mine is the hanging portions of houses attached to the ceiling, which simulate imperfectly linked fragments of the neighbourhood. As the play progresses, they take on a more menacing, even haunting quality, earning applause for how they mirror the characters’ unraveling lives.
The three actors are compelling and nuanced, demonstrating vulnerability and complexity in both their individual arcs and interactions.The Armstrongs bring to life a marriage that is picturesque à l’extérieur, but is riddled with hidden cracks: in the words of Denise’s daughter Gabriella, “Not all cages are physical.” Nappo’s embodiment of the clueless suburban beer-bellied father experiencing soul-crushing revelations toward the end of the play is showstopping, while Thompson’s transformation from delicate frailness into unexpected strength and empowerment is pure catharsis.
Though Tse’s dialogue is sparing in comparison to the Armstrongs’, his performance is just as powerful and riveting, thanks to his microexpressions and engaging zen. I think of him like the understated but indispensable triangle in a symphony – with novel Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (which he clutches through most of the performance) serving as a striker sounding out resonant notes. The novel tells the story of a man looking back at his past with regret for his misplaced loyalties and missed opportunity for love – which feels like a direct commentary on the Armstrongs’ relationship, and Simon in particular. Mr. Au Yeung Wei (with this fictionalized commentary in hand) represents the bird’s eye view that characterizes so many of our neighbourly relationships. He is both another audience member observing the traces of the Armstrongs’ lives from next door, and a kind of God foretelling the unraveling of their relationship from above. (At the same time, Ordena Stephens-Thompson noted in a Talkback how from her character Denise’s vantage point, Mr. Au Yeung’s doorstep is a safe place, and he is everything she wants to be, but cannot – a beautiful interweaving of character relationships with the play’s emotional and thematic underpinnings).
It’s notable that the simultaneous depiction of these two households’ lives literally requires the audience to focus on two things at the same time. Thanks to Matt White’s skilled direction, these scenes are not distracting or confusing, but rather conversation-sparking. The Neighbours is rich in performances that are moving, heartbreaking and transformative, and which ultimately prompt us to question where our focus lies, what we choose to see, and what we can be manipulated into believing — or ignoring, in order to evade the shame of our complicity.
Are we too much neighbour, or not neighbour enough? Too nosy about others, yet not investigative enough when it matters?
Or do we linger too readily in the bird’s eye view, clutching our omniscient observations: content to be spectators when in reality, we have always been players in the story?
The Neighbours runs until March 15, 2026 at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. Tickets are available at tarragontheatre.com
© Hafsa Hoosaney, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
