Fringe - Day 3

Aiden Flynn Lost his Brother, so He Made Another (Theatre Howl)

Aiden Flynn road into this Fringe festival with a reputation that well preceded it. It had already garnered accolades across the country, including an award for Best English Production at the Montreal Fringe (although it's a silent play, so that's kind of cheating). But it remained an enigma to me, despite my familiarity with its creators. Naturally, I was curious. Now that I have seen it, I understand completely why it has received so much praise. It does everything right that a Fringe show can do.

The story follows Aiden Flynn, a young boy who sees his family start to fall apart in the wake of his young brother's stillbirth. So he takes it upon himself, through some ingenious, child-like wizardry to create a brother. After the animation is successful, the two quickly form an unbreakable bond. Aiden teaches his new brother all he can about the world, but he is not prepared for the fact that other people will be less keen on him. The obvious parallel with Frankenstein is acknowledged by having a poster advertising the movie visible in one scene. But that parallel, in addition to being too easy, is not particularly helpful. Frankenstein created his monster because of ego. Aiden Flynn's brother is born of love, just as a brother should be. That makes it all the more heartbreaking to see their relationship drift away from what Aiden wants it to be. It's a story of family: what breaks them apart and what pulls them together.

Aiden Flynn is cowritten by Nathan Howe and Morgan Murray, who are no strangers to the Saskatoon Fringe Festival. They have an eclectic portfolio of shows behind them, and while this is quite different from anything that came before, it still feels like a culmination of those previous efforts. This is their Fringe magnum opus. That's not to say that it's all downhill from here for Theatre Howl, but I am saying that Aiden Flynn demonstrates the work of people who have learned on the road and, through experience, figured out how to put together a show that just works on every level.

It is a silent show, told through movement, music, and shadow puppets. And also a projector, although that unfortunately was not working at the time I went to see the show. It is to the credit of the production, though, that it still worked so well even without one of its major elements. The reason Aiden Flynn can persevere through seemingly catastrophic technical failures is because simplicity is at the heart of the show. It is a simple tale of a boy and his brother (who is not quite as other brothers are) and the trials they must face together. Perhaps the best metaphor for the play as a whole is the lengthy scene toward the beginning when Aiden is teaching his new brother how to walk. Such profound emotion can be found in this act of infantile discovery. As the audience, we are right there taking those uneasy first steps, and we find ourselves rediscovering all those simple things that we have been taking for granted.

Nathan Howe's set design captures the bright imagination of the play while at the same time being compact enough for Fringe logistics. There are three screens set up onstage. The centre one is blank and used for projections and shadows. Certain scenes take place behind it in silhouette. The other two screens are adorned with decoration: they have multiple canvases each that can be flipped back and forth to alter time and place. Some of them exist purely for backdrop, but the actors sometimes interact with these screens as well. The scenes portrayed on them give the impression of a child's illustration: simplistic but vibrant, though they can convey a sense of bleakness as well, as when the leaves are stripped away and two bare trees adorn the stage. The physical act of flipping through the canvases aids the overall feel of the set as well, as it becomes a sort of storybook. The props used consist mostly of little odds and ends of junk that a boy might collect for his own contraptions. The slapdash assortment of items used, in addition to conveying Aiden's humble family station, gives a sense of supreme imagination as we see Aiden constructing his world before us.

Music is used frequently to convey mood. The score is all original to the play, and it works as a peculiar blend of classic whimsy with a more modern electronic feel. It weaves together the innocence and imagination of the story with the darker Frankensteinish elements. My only complaint is during Aiden's "Creation" scene the music veered too far to the electronic side that it lost the imagination of the moment, but didn't really go far enough to be dramatic. The music loses its sense of place a few times, but the overall mood is very well thought-out.

Morgan Murray takes the role of Aiden. He brings a sense of innocent charm to the character. With his broad smile and bright eyes he convincingly portrays a young boy. He conveys the plays moments of greatest happiness and greatest sadness through his expression. His vibrant energy throughout the play helps keep everyone locked in attention, especially in the early scenes when he is alone, and it creates an even more powerful contrast for those sad, quiet moments. Danielle Spilchen plays the brother. Bound up in a scarecrow outfit, covered in makeup, and fitted with some very clumsy hands, she still does a remarkable job at conveying emotion. She instills a sense of empathy in the audience very quickly, and she was able to elicit the only collective "aww" I have experienced at a Fringe play. Her movement skills are superb, particularly in her first scene where she is trying to learn basic locomotion (I have to assume that convincingly forgetting how to walk is much easier said than done). She doubtless earned a few bruises for her commitment through the falls she had to take. And though she has no words to use, Spilchen makes some incredible sounds, driving the inherent non-humanness of her character while still being filled with emotion. Both leads work extremely well together; there is an extraordinary level of communication and intimacy between, all achieved wordlessly.

Aiden Flynn has been compared to Pixar, and I can certainly see the resemblance. Personally I find it more akin to the Sylvain Chomet animated movies Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist by the way it continually captures this sense of wonder and innocence, but retains a lingering sense of sadness underneath. Rather than cancel each other out, the two emotional levels weave into each other, creating something beautiful.  But more than anything, I can see this play as the work of the people involved, each one pouring a bit of their own soul into it - Nathan Howe's director, Nathan and Morgan's writing, and the captivating performances from Morgan and Danielle. It is a Fringe show of Fringe shows. Unique and unforgettable.

Fringe - Day 2

I Hate Bill Pats (Bessie-Jean Productions)

"The day after you decided to kill yourself is a weird day. That day kind of sneaks up on you."

Inevitably, at every Fringe there is one play that I hear people heaping praise onto but that I never manage to get to myself (because of petty human concerns like "time" and "money"). Last year, that play was I Hate Bill Pats. So I was delighted to see that the play was back on the roster this year, although I was a bit confused as to why it would come to the same Fringe two years in a row. As it turns out, this is more of an I Hate Bill Pats redux, combining together elements of the previous show as well as its sequel, I Hate Bill Pats 2: Electric Boogaloo (now that I think about it, the subtitle may actually have been Almost Homeless, but unfortunately I failed to take notes).

I Hate Bill Pats is a play about a man who hates himself (so naturally I found it easy to relate to). He begins with the story of how he was arrested for stealing $35,000 from Moxies when he worked there as a manager. He was arrested during a family dinner, in front of his wife, who had recently become a crown prosecutor. Because if there is one thing Bill Pats can do well, it is keep his life ironic. Bill continues to spin the tale of his arrest, his ensuing trial, and the efforts he took to just barely avoid prison. After that, we follow him across the years as he tries over and over again to put his life back together, plagued by troubling circumstances and bad choices. He takes us through his community service, two brushes with homelessness, a suicide attempt, and finally his discovery of acting.

Needless to say, we haven't all shared in Bill's life experience. We haven't all stolen from our work because we ran afoul of an irate Russian tow-truck driver. And we certainly haven't all bought Life brand sleeping pills to save money on our suicide. But there is a definite universality to his story, because we have all made bad choices; sometimes we narrowly escape the consequences, and sometimes we don't. Bill has had his share of both of those types of bad choices, and in the brave, unflinching way he shares this with us, he holds up a mirror for each of us to risk a glance, if we dare.

Bill Pats personifies that truly modernist archetype of the man vs himself. His life is a struggle on three levels. The first level is external: that raw, survival story where he fights against his circumstances  to eke out food and shelter. The second level is personal: the wrestling match against his own instincts and poor judgement, letting his emotions get the best of him and continually opting for deceit even when it threatens to destroy him. The third level is existential: that overpowering feeling that he has no reason to change, because his bad choices are intrinsic to him and he has precisely the life he deserves. This third level creates the soul of the play, because it challenges each and every member of the audience to consider themselves, and consider whether their life is the one they should really be leading, or just the one they think they should lead according to this nebulous notion of who they think they are.

The idea of personhood comes under question as the mantra of "I hate Bill Pats" cycles over and over. Is this Bill Pats he hates really himself, or is Bill Pats just an icon: a summation of all his bad choices externalised as an object of scorn? What is it that constitutes a person to begin with? These are questions that are left lingering on the air as we leave the auditorium. Because we can only answer one thing, and that is that we don't hate Bill Pats. We don't hate him because he is simply human, and for that hour that he is laid bare onstage he is more human than any of us.

I Hate Bill Pats is a poignant and soulful tale of a man who lost everything multiple times over. But it is also a profoundly hopeful tale of a man who kept pulling himself up, even after he was convinced it was the end. It is the story of a pained life, and though we, as the audience, cannot take that pain away, we can share in it for a little while, collectively acknowledging that there is a bit of hate in all of us, but that we don't need to live by it.

Bizarro Obscure (Peachy Keen Productions)

And now for something completely different. Departing from the very terrestrial subject of self-loathing in Winnipeg, let us move on to the shifting sands of reality many worlds apart. Let us move on to Bizarro Obscure, an inter-dimensional cabaret showcasing the universe's oddities, delighting in the unconventional and off-kilter.

Our characters are Janis and Jujube, musical performers on some unspecified plane of existence. But their concert is cut short when Jujube receives a mysterious letter instructing her that she must become a guardian to a small earthling boy named Daniel. So Janis and Jujube set out on a journey across the fabric of reality to save Daniel. Along the way, their misadventures find them tangling with a pair of magic glasses, a bearded lady, and a Russian DJ.

As I am writing this review, it occurs to me how difficult it is to render into words the actual plot of this play. If you are someone who demands a straightforward narrative, don't go see this play. Or actually, do go see this play, and let it broaden your horizons a little. Bizarro Obscure is a whirlwind tour of all the things the universe lost in the dryer. The loosely drawn narrative of Janis and Jujube's voyage across time and space is intercut with little vignettes of the strange folks they meet on their journey, as well as many beautiful and spine-tingling musical numbers. There is a bit of vaudeville in here, the way it combines all manners of performance (acting, comedy, song, and dance) but it's more like if vaudeville fell through a black hole and continued to evolve in an alien dimension, but still received the occasional TV signal from Earth. Am I making sense? No? Good.

The musical talent drives a large portion of Bizarro. The songs work well as standalone pop-folk-rock numbers, but are done in such a way that gives them a very extra-terrestrial feeling. The music sets the mood of being whisked across the universe on a journey just slightly beyond mortal comprehension. Christy Taronno (Jujube) is a musical powerhouse, rocking vocals and guitar. She's like a folk-rock angel who spent some time as an extra on Beetlejuice and her full, ethereal voice never fails to captivate. Meanwhile, Sydney Hayduk (Janis) dazzles us with her electrifying dance moves.

Hayduk is a firecracker on stage, taking on the roles of Janis, the bearded lady, and the little misfit boy Daniel. She captures a lot of character in her movement. As Janis she is more unnatural and alien (and a little robotic), but then as Daniel "the strongest boy in the world" she is brimming with earthly exuberance. She exudes both the inherent strangenesss of Bizarro as well as the undiluted human energy that burns at its core. Taronno is a bit more reserved in her acting, tackling the icy Russian DJ who shows up quite inexplicably (even by this play's standards). But as Jujube she is filled with hope and compassion, determined to do right by her charge. The two women (who also co-wrote the play) work brilliantly together in all aspects of performance. Their comedic timing bounces off each other and keeps everything moving swiftly across the cosmos, sweeping the audience along.

But for all the weird trappings Bizarro Obscure has, it has a very human theme at its core. It is about finding ourselves, finding the strength to accept ourselves as we are, with all our quirks and failings. The play is a celebration, and once we have swum across the tides of space and time we realise what it is a celebration of: everything out of the ordinary, everything that doesn't quite fit. After travelling so far away from our world, we come to understand ourselves a little better.

Bizarro Obscure is a dazzling blend of comedy, music, and touching drama. From beginning to end it operates within the realm of the abstruse and inexplicable, but deep within the weirdness we see ourselves, and realise that to understand ourselves, we need to look a little off-centre. Because the truth is stranger than fiction, and people are stranger than characters, and we all might as well learn to live with strange: it's not going anywhere.

Fringe - Day 1

2 for Tea (Life & Depth)

Take Monty Python and add a dash of Pirandello, and that will give you a rough idea of what you might expect from 2 for Tea at this year's fringe.

The play comes to us from across the pond. Performer/creators James Brown and Jamesy Evans hail from Sussex, but they have been touring North America for the past year. We all enjoy dabbling in British comedy, so it is nice to see an authentic take onstage.

2 for Tea centres on a very simple subject. There is tea ... for two of them. Every week James goes to visit his friend Jamesy for tea. Jamesy is in some way mentally ill, demonstrated by his obsession with routine and general fear of the outside. At the play's beginning we are greeted by the scene of Jamesy setting up the table for tea, adjusting everything millimetre by millimetre until it is just so. There is a long period of silence which Jamesy Evans uses as a sort of movement piece. He carries himself in such an ostentatiously dainty manner that "mince" does not even come close to covering it. This continues through the whole play, with Jamesy moving in very strange and specific ways that almost seems like an alien who is still trying to figure out how the human body works (and he demonstrates hip control that would surely get Shakira's nod of approval). It creates a bizarre scene right off the bat, but his commitment to it is responsible for much of the play's humour.

James, on the other hand, is the more normal of the two. He indulges Jamesy's idiosyncracies because he appreciates having Jamesy as a friend. We don't really know anything about James, though it is assumed he has a mostly normal life apart from these visits for tea. Although there is a great contrast between the two characters, a bond of friendship is evident all the way through.

But while James seems to lack Jamesy's odd habits, he is the first one to break the fourth wall. There some very clever moments when James starts making asides and Jamesy looks out in bewildered terror, not quite knowing what is going on. Just as James indulges Jamesy's quirks, Jamesy starts to play along with this whole notion of "the audience", first cautiously, until he finally begins to see it for himself.

And at that point 2 for Tea stops following any conventional rules of drama that I have ever learned. It becomes an endearing blend of farce and improv where J&J start interacting with the audience and incorporating the response into their show on the fly. Some of these are planned, like when they go out to speak to audience members directly, and some of them happen organically, like when the guy sitting behind me had his phone start doing off, and Jamesy started dancing and singing along with the ringtone.

A large part of the play is based on audience participation. J&J pull certain audience members up to fulfill roles in the play: a general, a doctor, and Jamesy's parents. This is where the show could start to go either way. In the performance I saw, one of the audience members worked very well in the scene, while another worked somewhat less well. But whatever happened, J&J always had quick reflexes to keep the scene flowing smoothly.

The play goes into some weird places toward the end. There is plenty of comedy all throughout, oscillating between dry wit and slapstick, but there are sombre moments as well, plumbing the depths of their friendship and the universe at large. The whole thing is kind of a metaphor. Just as two friends may sit around a cup of tea (or whatever beverage you prefer) and ponder all life's questions, 2 for Tea is a meditation on all sorts of things, but continues to be anchored by this farcical afternoon tea.

2 for Tea is a hilarious, unique, meta-theatrical experience that isn't afraid to jump quite unexpectedly into darker subjects. Jamesy's peculiar mental state is used for comedic effect, but it's also treated with respect by the friendship they have for each other. It's a tale of friendship, above all. Friendship and tea.

Also, the two actors spend the whole show in heavy tweed jackets even though it gets close to 30°C in Oskayak gym. That's dedication.

Stop Kiss

It seems a tautology to call this a passion project for Charlie Peters, since everything he does is a passion project. But I will go ahead and take that risk. Stop Kiss is indeed a passion project for director/local legend Charlie Peters, and one that he has been relentlessly promoting since the start of the Live Five season. I spent most of these months with only a vague awareness of what the play was actually about, though I assumed it was a romantic comedy. It's not. But it sort of is.

Stop Kiss is a play of two stories: a comedy and a tragedy. It begins with the meeting of two women, Callie and Sara. As two young, single women in New York City, they strike up a fast friendship, and that friendship turns into something else, and they struggle to come to grips with their true feelings for each other. When it seems they are finally ready to embrace the reality of their relationship, their lives are torn asunder by a shocking act of violence, leaving Sara lying comatose in a hospital bed. Callie has to carry on in grieving vigil, facing judgement and hostility from all around her, facing the obliteration of the life she had, all because of one kiss.

Two stories: a comedy and a tragedy; first one, then the other. The play's narrative arc is severed at the halfway point, and the scenes are scissored up, interlaced with one another to alternate in an odd/even rhythm, telling both halves of the story in parallel. Diana Son's script is a play of form. Trying to organise the narrative arc chronologically doesn't work; the story becomes patchy and lop-sided, without a clear emotional climax or sense of resolution. The strength of Stop Kiss, rather, lies in its powers of juxtaposition, the parallel lines of the story batting the audience back and forth between emotional states like a ping-pong ball. It emphasises each individual scene as a closed system. We dig in hard during the comedy because we know it's only going to last briefly, while we feel the sting of the tragedy fresh every time because we are still so close to what was lost. Arranging these singular scenes in this way is how the drama exists, and it is the only way it can exist.

Diana Son wrote this play in 1998, when issues of LGBT rights were only just beginning to accrue mainstream acceptance. 16 years later its effect has not diminished. Subjects of violence and homophobia are still central to our public conscious. Because this play is about more than one act of aggression; it's about a whole system of society that fails Callie and Sara, working fervently against them to prevent them from being who they really want to be. In one scene, Callie is relating to Detective Cole the nature of the assault, while the detective listens with thinly veiled disgust. Callie is made to feel that the attack was instigated by her lifestyle (which had not yet become a lifestyle at all) and that Sara aggravated the attack by not just walking away. Later Callie is confronted by Sara's former boyfriend Peter, who berates her for not being able to protect Sara. Everyone is interested in making the attack her fault while not providing any comfort for her, because her relationship with Sara is invalid.

But apart from the heavy material, Stop Kiss is also a delightful, humourous tale of the tribulations of two women living in New York City. There are clearly some local references that I could not entirely understand, but mostly it is relateable as a story of two people unsure of where they fit in a large world. Sara is a self-confident optimist teaching at a rough-and-tumble Bronx school, while cynical Callie is a traffic reporter who sees the whole world as being in a state of perpetual gridlock. They come together when Callie agrees to take care of Sara's shy cat (I'll leave it to everyone else to find a crass metaphor in that) and they connect through a mutual willingness to challenge each other without judging each other. The relationship flourishes onstage in a very sort amount of time, doubtless due in large part to the long-standing friendship of the two leads, Jenna-Lee Hyde and Angela Kemp. They have such natural chemistry that they are instantly believable as budding soul-mates.

The interplay between these two halves of the story is enhanced by Jenna Maren's set design. The stage is set up around Callie's roomy but cluttered Manhattan apartment. Making a living space look appropriately messy can be a difficult thing onstage, but Maren succeeds in making something that really feels inhabited. Along the back is a wall of several window screens. The screen on either side of the stage runs on a track, so it can be pulled forward to section off one wing of the stage to create an external space. Most of the tragic half of the story takes place is such external spaces, so in those scenes the stage creates a very claustrophobic effect, with Callie's world tightening around her, while the apartment set, and the happier associations that go with it, lingers tauntingly in the background.

One of the most striking decisions Charlie Peters made in his direction was how to handle scene changes. Multiple scene changes can be challenging for small productions without a dedicated crew, because actors then have to drop out to shuffle furniture around in the dark, and that can have a detrimental effect on character dynamics. But Peters avoided this problem by choreographing the scene changes, so that rather than pulling away from the scenes, the transitions become miniature scenes in themselves. There are no hard edges to the drama. When the lights dim, we see Callie and Sara being pulled away from each other and we see the tonal shift happening right in front of us. We also get to see these small character moments that are not in the script but which work perfectly logically in the form the drama takes. From beginning to end, the action flows freely.

There is only one problem with the format, and that is that it does not allow time for any make-up. We see Sara in a hospital bed after having been badly beaten, but to the audience there are no visual signs of injury. There is no good solution for this given the constant back-and-forth of the scenes, but unfortunately it is a detail that stands out.

With a cast of six, there are a lot of shifting dynamics that the actors have to manage gracefully. Jenna-Lee Hyde and Angela Kemp carry the majority of the play, but they have a solid group of actors supporting them. Curtis Peeteetuce is Detective Cole, whom we first see aggressively questioning Callie about an unspecified incident. He is the closest thing to a villain we actually see on stage, but Peeteetuce handles the role with a great sense of control. He does not play up the hostility to an exaggerated degree, but he carries through his scenes with a quiet, reserved disdain for people. Carol  Wylie is Mrs. Winsley, a considerate bystander armed with spider plants. She injects some compassion back into the play after Detective Cole, but she still has a New York steeliness about her. Jaron Francis plays George, Callie's sometime FWB who is not sure what to think about her relationship with Sara. Francis brings charisma and emotional realism to what is probably the least active character in the play. George pops in and out, mostly just as someone for Callie to bounce off, but Francis and Hyde have enough chemistry to make those scenes work. Then there is Chris Donlevy, who makes two short appearances as Peter, Sara's former (or current, depending on whom you ask) boyfriend. First he has an angry confrontation with Callie, then a soft moment with an unconscious Sara. Donlevy gives a weighty performance, hitting an emotional peak with very little time but also folding in the vaguely sinister and controlling undertones of Peter's sympathies.

Angela Kemp tackles the daunting task of playing Sara. The challenge for her is the vastly different energy levels at which she must play. In one scene she is feisty, animated, bouncy; in the next scene she is catatonic, or nearly so, and the scene after that she switches back. She never misses a beat, and even after spending one scene immobile she charges out on stage moments later firing on all cylinders. Kemp has a natural vibrancy that plays into Sara's fun and spunky side, but she also has an edge, a sense of strength and ferocity. In her tragic scenes, while she is, by necessity, doing little, she communicates a lot of emotion in her few, lingering glances.

And then there is Jenna-Lee Hyde, fearless and peerless. She demonstrates why she is the best young actress in the city with this dynamite performance. Callie is, at best, a lost soul. She begins the play as passive, cynical and withdrawn, able to let loose only by blasting pop music alone in her living room (displayed in the play's opening moments where Hyde shows off her lip-syncing skills). Her arc is based on finding strength, but not in a clean-cut heroic epic kind of way; it is a messy struggle to learn how to fight for something. And Hyde embraces that messiness. She digs deep into the character, staying present with every action, resonating with every minor emotional climax, putting a real flesh-and-blood person in the scene. This role takes a lot from her. Apart from one brief scene, she is onstage for the entire duration of the play, and she doesn't have a chance to take a breath. I think I've used the term "emotional whiplash" before, but it has never been more appropriate than right here. Jumping between these parallel scenes, Hyde is tossed around like a rag doll, going from comfortable joy to twisted misery, and she never misses her mark.

This is a play that lives for the stage. It needs to be shared. I can understand why Charlie Peters felt so strongly about sharing it. Stop Kiss contains a lot of pain, moment to moment, but overall it is a story about love, learning to accept your own desires, and the ability to fight for the right to be yourself. It doesn't moralise, because none of the characters pretend to have all the answers. Rather, it creates a dialogue. At some point we have all been Callie, and whether not we choose to admit it, we have also been Peter and Det. Cole. In this audience we are invited to ask ourselves what person we really choose to be.

And before I sign off, I should pause on the title. Stop Kiss. It's easy to say a play's title so much that it loses meaning. But this title is worth a moment, worth considering how much effort, throughout the course of the play, goes in to stopping a simple kiss from happening, worth considering why it is such a dangerous thing. But then again, maybe the title is an imperative, a guideline for those rough moments in the days that go by. Stop. Kiss.

Words to live by.

Our Country's Good

Australia: the final frontier. Or so it would have seemed, I imagine, on a hot stuffy morning in 1788 when the first ship of convicts arrived at Sydney to begin the new experimental prison colony to kick off the least-discussed chapter in the British Empire's history. The savagery of the new landscape is matched only by that of the British officers, gleefully raking the flesh of their charges for King and Country. Such a scene is the last place you'd expect a theatre to emerge. Yet that is what happens.

Greystone theatre is in a harrowing time itself, with budgets being slashed across the board and loud discussions popping up everywhere asking what purpose the arts have in a modern educational institution. And along comes this play: Our Country's Good, by renowned British playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker. This show, being mounted here by Pamela Haig Bartley, accounts the struggle of putting on a play against all odds in the unlikeliest environment, and along the way discovering the transformative power of theatre to make people more than themselves.

The play begins with our neither bold nor dashing hero 2nd Lieutenant Ralph Clark appearing quite bored counting out lashes as charismatic prisoner Robert Sideway screams in agony. Clark seems an unlikely protagonist, being every bit the stuffy British officer – while he doesn't delight in cruelty toward the prisoners, he is also devoid of compassion, viewing them as unfortunate bits of filth that he must avoid, lest his boots get dirty. Yet he finds himself organising a group of convicts to put on the first ever play staged in the colony of Australia. The experience gives both the convicts and Clark a new understanding of their own humanity, but the production is hounded at every turn by Clark's superior officers, who believe the only entertainment allowed to prisoners should be watching their friends hang.

It's a dark play, exploring the brutality and callousness of humans and the staggering marginalisation of people in Georgian British society (with a nod to how much of that carries through to today). Yet it is also surprisingly funny. Some jokes were understated during performance, but most found their way to the surface, even amid the dark and despairing subject matter. Wertenbaker writes edgy humour that dares you to laugh and immediately shames you for doing so. Good's twisted comic sense appeals to the blacker side of our nature, leaving plenty of moments of “Ha ha! ... wait, why was that funny?” The humour does not cheapen the drama, but likewise the drama does not bleaken the humour.

The stage is sparse. Against the back is a large wooden platform with a sail draped behind, serving at different points as ship, prison hold, and residence. The rest of the performing area is populated only with a couple small wooden boxes. This leaves a lot of space for the actors to manoeuvre – perhaps too much, as at times movement can become very elastic, with actors stretching far away from each other for no reason other than obligation to use all the space. The thrust set up puts the audience on three sides of the stage. This always proves a challenge to blocking, but on the two nights I saw the play I sat in mirrored seats and felt I got a full picture each time. The thrust gives a much more intimate atmosphere to the experience, especially with frequent entrances and exits through the aisles, the actors spend a lot of time within prodding distance of the audience. This close proximity never creates an alienating effect though; rather it pulls you deeper into the drama with this sense of hovering over the characters' shoulders.

Collin Konrath's lighting design plays on different levels, both natural and surreal, suiting the mood of the scene. The composition often gives the stage a hazy feeling, like the world we are looking into is shadowed and sinister. This is contrasted with more bright, naturalistic compositions during the scenes in which the convicts rehearse the play. Beverly Kobelsky once again delivers a superb range of costumes for all the sundry characters. One particularly nice touch is the “gentleman's clothes” that Sideway scrounges together for himself from the rags available in the prison.

It is no coincidence that this play is happening in the midst of all the TransformUS controversy. Haig Bartley says as much in her director's notes. Theatre has historically been the mark of a stable and prosperous society, but it has also historically come under attack. When Ralph Clark defends his play against his superior officers, Captain Tench and Major Ross, they present objectively sound arguments against doing the play: that it's a waste of resources, that it will take prisoners away from labour, that it doesn't produce anything of material value. But Clark, like the audience, knows there is a lot more to it, that the theatre is worth much more than labour, that both he and the prisoners are gaining something they otherwise never would have gained. And to this play's credit, there is no Pollyanna cheat where everyone realises their own errors and celebrates together; the struggle continues past curtain, but it leaves you with a sense of strength.

Our Country's Good plays on spectra. There is the wise, compassionate Governor Phillips against the merciless, rage-filled Major Ross; the stiff-backed and mild-mannered Ralph Clark against the boisterous but deeply disturbed Harry Brewer; the venomous Liz Morden against the timid Mary Brenham. Each spectrum has counterpoints, but no one is fully good. Each person has their dark side, and they all play the game of marginalisation: the officers against the prisoners, the circumstantially different prisoners against each other, and everyone against the Aborigines.

Exploration of ethnic discrimination is where this production hits a bit of a snag. The drama department at the U of S has never had much racial diversity, so ethnic roles always present a challenge. The sole Aboriginal Australian in the play is portrayed by second year acting student Aren Okemaysim; and while an Aboriginal Canadian is still a long way from an Aboriginal Australian, at least for a Saskatchewan audience it feels appropriate. Less can be said for the role of Caesar, who is supposed to be a black African man, but is portrayed by two white females. No one can be blamed for this; a role needed to be filled, actresses needed a role, and to the credit of Jillian Borrowman and Kelly McTaggart, they play the character with a lot of heart and emotional immediacy – but there is still something inescapably uncomfortable about the whole thing. The script doesn't do these characters much better. Caesar spends most of his stage time in a panic that his soul will be lost if he doesn't return to Madagascar, and the other characters respond to this by bullying him into submission with acts of extreme violence, and the audience seems to be expected to take this as a sort of triumph. The Aboriginal interludes are a different beast. The character himself is treated with a sort of reverence, centre stage in his eerie lighting, making pronunciations to the audience, but the brief scenes are so slow and hypertheatrical they feel out of step with everything else in the play. The idea of having an outsider looking in on the other characters doesn't work, because the dialogue is presented in such a reserved story-circle kind of way it lacks the emotional resonance to drive the point into the audience.

This production is a class project for the third and fourth year acting students. This means there were a lot of actors to fit in to the sizeable cast, though some male parts were quite small and there were only a few female parts at all. A creative solution was devised, that the women in the cast would alternate night to night, each one assigned a female role and a small male role. I caught both versions of the performance and the actresses handled the shift well. There were notable differences between performances, but the overall tone of the play stayed the same.

Voice was a huge dimension to the production. To capture the feel of an 18th century British colony, the actors worked extensively to produce a flurry of dialects onstage. They range from prim and proper received-pronunciation to Scottish, Irish, Cockney, and all the little pockets in between. The vocal dynamic created a very colourful picture onstage, albeit with the side effect of leaving me reaching for the subtitle button more than once.

One nice thing about Greystone productions is that the students spend so much time together leading up to the play that it leads to an easy chemistry between them. That chemistry is on display here; the actors are comfortable taking each other to bleak depths or spirited highs. In all the sound and the fury there is a sense of trust, and that is what pulls the whole play together.

Torien Cafferata takes the central role in Our Country's Good, as 2nd Lt. Ralph Clark. He has risen through Greystone productions over the past two years and here proves himself capable of wrangling a lead. At the top of the play, Clark is a bit of a fastidious ponce, but even through the stiff-backed bigotry, Cafferata gives him an endearing charm, looking out with naïve wonder. He tackles Clark's flustered timidity with great comedic timing, and his gradual emotional exploration with added weight and thoughtful poise. It's a dignified performance rife with subtle shifts (even if it does come off as a little pre-9/11). Complementary to Cafferata's Clarke is Philip Munson's Governor Phillip, the wise owl of the colony who pushes Clark to continue with the play. Munson's role is more oratorial than character-driven. He nicely combines the poise of governor with avuncular kindness, but the role in general doesn't have much edge to it.

Jesse Fulcher Gagnon plays the spirited prisoner Robert Sideway (who in real life went on to open a convict theatre). He runs the gamut of emotions in this play. The first time we see him he is screaming in agony under the whip; the second time he is bouncing around the stage trying to impress Clark with his overacting and foppery. It is clearly a fun role, bursting with energy, but in a second Fulcher Gagnon can reel everything in and slow down to a crawl in the play's heavy moments. He strikes a balance between the thousand watt smile and the thousand yard stare to create an image that is both lovable and haunting. Wade Klassen turns in his best performance yet as John Wisehammer, the Jewish prisoner with aspirations of being a writer. Frequently put upon, Wisehammer sees the new colony as an opportunity to reinvent himself, although the road isn't easy. Klassen conducts himself with a prevailing bitterness, though he's entrusted with many of the play's funniest lines, creating some meta humour at times, when he is the only one among the cast to call attention to certain things. His poetical digressions are less bitter, but still affixed with a sharp edge, culminating in his prologue for The Recruiting Officer delivered in the play's final moments; it infuses him with a sense of triumph after a long period of wandering. And Kyle Kuchirka as troublesome prisoner John Arscott is seen comparatively briefly but rounds out the cast with his colourful presence and comic sense.

The women in the cast have a particular challenge, performing double roles, trading off night after night, making a distinct impression on their own characters, as well as navigating the often cloudy motivations of the female characters in general. Dabby Bryant probably has the clearest motivation of any of the females; she is filled with bravado which belies her desperate longing to return home. Her best scene is early on when we see her batting around Clark like a ball of yarn as he is trying to hold auditions. She is portrayed by Jillian Borrowman and Kelly McTaggart. Both bring a swaggering confidence to the role, though Borrowman shines more while taking charge and McTaggart leans a bit more to the moments of longing. Meg Long is probably the funnest character in the play, being showcased primarily in one early scene where she riles up Clark with her lusty behaviour. Ciara Richardson and Kendra Helm both let loose on this part. Because Meg appears so briefly, the corresponding minor male role is much larger than the others: Judge David Collins. It's a bit of a hard role to sell in drag, but Richardson pulls off a better sense of authority. And then there is the darling love interest of the play, Mary Brenham, whom Clark casts as the lead in The Recruiting Officer before falling for her himself. She is portrayed by Miranda Hughes and Jalisa Gonie, both of whom capture the quiet innocence of the character. Gonie in particular plays more withdrawn and timid, though she has more success at bringing out Brenham's small moments of humour. Hughes is slightly graver, lingering on Brenham's dark memories, but she also has more playful chemistry with Cafferata, leading into their climactic rendez-vous with the tiniest bit of coquetteishness.

The roles of Duckling and Liz Morden are the meatiest among the females. Duckling is the sullen mistress (cum captive) of Harry Brewer, while Morden is the most notorious of the female prisoners and spends a large portion of the play in chains. Both characters are somewhat incomplete. The exact nature of Duckling's relationship to Brewer is unclear until the end, and even then doesn't make a lot of sense. There is no readily discernible reason for why Liz Morden has such a vile reputation, nor why she is so recalcitrant about saving herself from execution. So it becomes the challenge of the performer to fill in these blanks. Duckling is a character who exists mainly in extremes, either roiling in silence or bursting with emotion; she's quiet, except when she's not. Jenna Berenbaum and Lauren Younghusband are entrusted with this delicate balance. Berenbaum is feistier and more volatile, with the hard edges of a young woman who has seen too much shit. Younghusband plays a little softer, which makes her pain more transparent. Both of them work quite well with Kashtin Moen, challenging him in slightly different ways. The leading lady, Liz Morden, is a different matter. Anna Mazurik takes the role for half the run. Recovering some of that fiery stage presence she evinced in Better Living, she lights up the stage with her acid-tongued snark. She is a creature of natural grace that has been hobbled by life. For the other half, the role is taken by the incomparable Elizabeth Nepjuk. Her Morden is darker, angrier, held onstage by a mysterious gravity, pulling the audience inward. She has no spark; rather she has a slow, rhythmic smoulder. Both women succeed in bringing urgency and believability to Morden's emotional climax. And in one scene at the top of Act II, where Morden delivers a monologue consisting of a string of incomprehensible British slang, both actresses make the message perfectly clear to the audience.

The play is not without its villains. Robert Grier plays the dry, pompous Captain Tench. It has always amazed me that despite Grier's friendly disposition, onstage he can affect an air of snobbery so thick you can smash it with a hammer. He is a strong character in a couple key early scenes, but he unfortunately disappears for the latter half of the play. Kody Manson is Captain Campbell, cohort of Major Ross. He doesn't have a lot of lines and spends a lot of time snickering at the other character's dialogue (injecting some welcome comedic relief into some of the play's rougher sections), but he maintains an imposing force in the play. Another force is Mikael Steponchev as our lead antagonist, Major Ross. Steponchev attacks his scenes with an impressive amount of ferocity. He has a talent for raising the intensity of the scene, but there is the nagging problem that he is a little hard to buy in the role of the salty elder Scotsman while having such a youthful look to him (especially with the much more bearded and rugged Manson has his sidekick). He seems aware of this hurdle, and tries to remedy it by throwing everything he has into establishing menace, but in doing so he spends so much time hovering at the level of apoplectic rage that he doesn't have a lot of room to manoeuvre.

Stand-outs of the performance rest on two things. The first is Jared Berry as Ketch Freeman, the unfortunate soul who is forced to take the role of hang-man, executing his fellow prisoners. He takes on the role with such wounded earnestness that the audience breaks for him. He encapsulates the fear, desperation, and longing for acceptance which underscores the rest of the play. From his monologue to Lt. Clark, where he asks if God can forgive the hang-man, to the quiet, torturous scene where he takes Liz Morden's measurements. Between the statuesque misery that Mazurik and Nepjuk bring to the scene and Berry's withered desperation, it creates a beautifully soul-rending emotional climax. The other stand-out is Kashtin Moen as Harry Brewer, the simple midshipman who makes friendly conversation with Lt. Clarke and a boyish crush on Duckling that he unwittingly turns into something menacing. Throughout everything he is haunted by the memories of the men he hanged at the beginning of the play. The audience witnesses his complete disintegration, from playful oaf to raving madman. And Moen charges through the role, risking emotional whiplash in every scene, switching from loving to rage-filled to terrified in a second. It is a haunting role that requires a tremendous amount of emotional availability, and Moen slips into it naturally.

And at nearly 3,000 words I should probably wrap this up. Our Country's Good, both in scrip and performance, suffers the odd blind spot. But this is more than made up for by the clever, darkly humourous, exceedingly vulgar (always a plus) dialogue and the chemistry between the cast. For any of you who have ever felt theatre elevate you in any way, to see something greater, this one is for you.