Jayce McKenzie in Center of the Universe, Edmonton Fringe 2024. Photo supplied.

Center of the Universe (Stage 13, Service Credit Union Théâtre at La Cité francophone)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Maxine, at 13, is bright, smart, charming. She just doesn’t seem to be able to (in the common parlance) get her shit together.

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Which is why Maxine is in detention. Again. Writing “I will not rollerblade in the school” on the blackboard, whilst wearing rollerblades. “I don’t know why it’s so hard to do anything, and why I’m so confused all the time.”

There is a reason. And it emerges in the course of a show that sets out to actually demonstrate, from the stage, what it’s like to be an ADHD-er: hyper-alert but perpetually distractible, lacking segués, disorganized, always late, getting bright ideas and abandoning them, letting the free-associative impulse squelch any thought about causes and consequences. “I don’t feel super-connected. So, usually I just feel alone and have to distract myself.”

This deliberate evocation of a scatty world from the inside out, a world that’s very apt to disintegrate, does not, of course, make for dramatic coherence or focus in the usual sense. And Center of the Universe, by and starring actor/playwright Jayce McKenzie, who knows a lot about both ADHD and playing kids, doesn’t hang together in any conventional, explainable way. This is a play with its own kind of theatrical ADHD, and it makes you a bit dizzy.

There are long interludes of Maxine’s favourite music, there are exchanges with a mysterious and reassuring Voice, there are little outbursts of audience participation with a Ouija board. Maxine consults a family photo album tucked into her backpack, which features her sticker collection instead of family holiday shots, a troubling insight into the domestic dynamic.

Can I explain the ending to you, with Maxine gathering her resources for a reveal concerning a mystery box? Nope (and I wouldn’t even if I could). But Center of the Universe does vividly conjure a world of scattered impulses. And McKenzie is such an endearing performer: you want her to succeed.