Theatre 2023: Mirvish - Pressure

Pressure is a Scottish play which deals with an unlikely Scottish World War II war hero who never fired a shot, but whose actions saved the lives of over 300,000 men and affected the outcome of the war. The play was first performed in 2014 at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh before moving to London’s West-End in 2018 and now to Toronto in 2023, delayed by several years due to the COVID shutdowns.

James Martin Stagg (1900-1971) was a senior meteorologist with the United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force who was tasked with leading a team of 6 who had to predict what the weather would be like over a period of 3 days between June 5 to June 7, 1944. The Battle of Normandy, a massive military campaign codenamed “Operation Overload”, was planned to take place some time during this narrow window, based on predictions of favourable tides and the phase of the moon.  The assault would begin with air bombardment by 1200 planes to take out German airfields and fuel supplies, followed by the approach of 5000 warships carrying soldiers for ground battle. 

 The allied forces led by American general Dwight D. Eisenhower had tentatively scheduled “D-Day”, or the first day of a major military operation, to be on June 5.  It was up to Stagg to confirm if the weather would cooperate.  A successful mission depended on clear skies and a full moon so that the air operations would have good visibility to see their targets, low winds and calm seas so that the fleet could safely approach the shore, and low tides so that the descending ground troops could see German  mines and other obstacles. 

Stagg, who was native to the area and familiar with the capricious nature of the English Channel, predicted a huge storm would descend on the scheduled D-Day, despite the weather being sunny and pleasant several days before. His American counterpart, commercial meteorologist Irving Krick, strongly disagreed and predicted good weather.  While Stagg used both experience and technical measurements of temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloud cover and wind patterns for his forecast, Krick used a misguided and since debunked method of predicting future weather based on similar historical patterns and cycles.

Stagg was correct in his predictions and luckily convinced Eisenhower to postpone the original D-Day, thus avoiding catastrophe since a major storm did blow in. His heroics went even further when he then spotted a brief window of improving weather for the next day, which allowed D-Day to go forward on the early morning of June 6, 1944.  Although the conditions were not ideal, they were good enough for a successful operation and the rest is history, as the saying goes.  Stagg was awarded the Legion of Merit and appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his invaluable war efforts.

Haig's play Pressure focuses on the big decision of whether to proceed with the scheduled D-Day with a secondary plot exploring the rumoured war-time affair between Eisenhower and his secretary/personal chauffeur Kay Summersby.  In the first act which sets up the scenario, we are a bit overwhelmed by weather-forecasting lingo and statistics as Stagg analyzes information from maps and data that are gathered remotely from off-shore observers and weather balloons. There were no satellites to aid him back in 1944.  To help with our understanding, the large weather maps that are delivered intermittently throughout the play are covered with large swirly weather patterns with storms identified in large red letters named L1, L2 .. L8, and a big red H representing a high-pressure system which theoretically would bring good weather.  As each new map is rolled out, we could see the markers for the storms shift and grow as Stagg explains the meaning of the movements. 

The role of James Stagg is played by Kevin Doyle (known for playing the butler turned schoolteacher Joseph Molesley from the TV show Downton Abbey).  The name of the play cleverly alludes to both the atmospheric pressure that Stagg measured, as well as the extreme pressure that he was under to come to the right conclusion about the weather on June 5.  Adding further to the drama was his concern over his wife’s difficult pregnancy and impending child-birth.  This may or may not have been added for dramatic purposes, but Stagg’s second child was indeed born in 1944.  As the antagonist in the play, Irving Krick is portrayed (perhaps excessively or stereotypically) as a loudmouthed, overbearing American who spouts his misconceptions as facts, living up to his reputation as being more of a showman than a scientist.

Although all the action took place in the single room where Stagg performed his analysis, a clever piece of staging helped to accentuate the problem that he faced.  To the right of the stage were a set of double doors that opened up to reveal the "weather outside”.  Through use of lighting to simulate bright sunshine, it was clear that the weather was fine for days leading up to D-Day.  This made Stagg’s prediction of the impending storm even more difficult to accept. The harbinger of the big storm that finally arrived was conveyed by a gust of wind that caused the curtains around the doors to flap and some papers to fly around.  Then the skies darkened as pelting rain, thunder and lightning could be seen and heard, all through these doors.

Rounding out the play are multiple tender interactions between Eisenhower and Summersby that left no doubt as to their emotional (and perhaps physical?) connection.  It was also made clear that with the success of Operation Overload and the impending end of the war, this relationship, borne out of extreme and heightened circumstances, would also be coming to an end. Sadly for Summersby, she would be left behind as collateral damage.

Considering how often weather predictions are wrong today, even with all our modern technology, the feat achieved by James Stagg and his team was remarkable, especially given the dire importance of getting it right.  This was a gripping piece of history, but having said that, it still was quite the accomplishment for this play to make weather sound exciting.

Theatre 2023: Fifteen Dogs @ Crow's Theatre

On stage at Crow’s Theatre, the play Fifteen Dogs is based a novel by Canadian author André Alexis, which my husband Rich and I both read and enjoyed a few years back. The premise revolves around a wager between the Greek Gods Apollo and Hermes as to whether animals would be unhappy if they were given human intelligence.  Passing a veterinary clinic where 15 dogs were being kept, the Gods decided to pick these animals as the test subjects to settle their bet.  Apollo wagered that burdened with human qualities, all the dogs would die unhappy.  Hermes bet that at least one of the 15 dogs would benefit from the additional awareness and would feel happiness at the point of death.

Imbued with human consciousness and intelligence, the dogs quickly figured out how to unlock the doors of their cages. Twelve of the dogs fled their captivity while three decided to remain and were unfortunately put down once the escape was discovered.  The rest of the book follows the twelve dogs for the durations of their lives as they grappled with their unnatural new traits and skills, occasionally with further intervention from the two Gods, as well as from their peeved father Zeus, King of the Greek Gods.

Of different breeds, temperaments, sizes and ages, the dogs reacted differently to the new thoughts and feelings that befell them. Atticus, a grey Neapolitan Mastiff abhorred the changes and was determined to suppress them and only display “normal and natural” canine traits.  As one of the largest and most powerful dogs in the group, he assumed the role of leader and demanded that all who wanted to remain in his pack would follow suit in acting like “real” dogs. Joining him were Rosie, a female German Shepherd, Frick and Frack, two Labrador Retrievers, Benjy, a cunning self-serving Beagle and a few others.

Any dog who did not readily obey Atticus or fit into his plans would be killed by his gang.  While they were successful in eliminating several dogs including the Great Dane Bella and little Teacup Poodle Athena, two dogs managed to survive.  Of all the dogs, the mutt named Prince embraced his new powers of thought the most.  He became a poet, speaking in flowery, abstract terms that drove Atticus to distraction.  But before he could be killed, Prince was given a warning by Hermes and escaped into exile. The large black Poodle Majnoun was a threat to Atticus’ leadership status and therefore was attacked en masse by the group.  He was left for dead but managed to survive when he was rescued by Nira and Miguel, two humans who adopted him.  Much of the book follows the exploits of Majnoun (renamed Jim by his new owners) and Prince.

André Alexis set this fable in Toronto, his hometown, focusing on High Park where the dogs made their new home after their escape, and the Beach where Prince spent much of his time after his exile.  The printed version of the novel even contains maps of these two areas.  On Bloor Street, Bella was hit by a car after being tricked into racing across it by Frick and Frack.  Alexis also name-checks many other well-known streets including Kingston Road, Glen Stewart Park, Trinity-Bellwoods, Parkdale, and even St. Clair and Avenue Road which is close to where we live!  These specific Toronto-based settings made this fantasy a bit more grounded as we could imagine all the places where these dogs roamed.

While reading this book, I was reminded of the classic novel Lord of the Flies where an isolated group of boys struggled for dominance, formed cliques and empowered by groupthink, lost their sense of morality and performed unspeakable acts as a collective that might never have occurred if each acted individually.  I found it interesting that in Lord of the Flies, the boys turned into “depraved animals” while in Fifteen Dogs, the innocent, inherently loyal creatures turned into “depraved humanoids”. 

Given its subject matter, Fifteen Dogs is not an easy novel to perform in live theatre, but Crow’s Theatre is known for its creative staging and Marie Farsi who adapted and directed this play did a fantastic job. The Guloien Theatre, Crow’s main stage, can be configured in all sorts of arrangements.  This time, the audience sat in “the round” with 5 rows of tiered stadium seating surrounding the “stage”.  Six stellar actors each played the roles of multiple dogs, as well as the Greek Gods, humans who interacted with the dogs, and narrators who would convey the parts of the book that involved lyrical exposition.

We wondered with some trepidation about whether we would see actors prance around in “full-body dog suits” like the creepy movie version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats.  Wisely, for this production the costumes were much more subtle, merely hinting at the breed by the colour of clothing and the occasional scarf or hat.  The wrinkly ridges of skin on the Mastiff, Atticus, were represented by layers of grey scarf wrapped around the neck of the actor portraying him.  Rosie, the German shepherd had a piece of sleek fur draped over her shoulder. The tall slender actor playing Majnoun was dressed all in black, while the loopy, free-spirited poet Prince had wild, curly hair and was dressed in dark brown tones, with a fur-lined vest and boa-like scarf.  The sly Beagle Benjy had on a beige-toned checkered jacket and fedora hat, resulting in a look that channeled Nicely-Nicely Johnson from the musical Guys and Dolls.

While the clothing helped, the essence of each dog was conveyed more by the sounds, body movements and facial expressions produced by the actors’ performances.  In a stroke of stage-craft genius, fifteen plastic models were used to visually represent each of the dogs in the story.  They were first brought out in a tray during the scene in the veterinary clinic and then moved to one of the rocks on stage.  Being able to see the breed of each dog really helped to augment the performances of the actors.  Then one by one as the dogs died, their corresponding figure was carried off stage as the circumstances of their death was explained.  It felt like we were watching Agatha Christie’s classic mystery Ten Little Indians (aka And Then There Were None).

This was a terrific and creative interpretation of a difficult novel to adapt into a play.  We thoroughly enjoyed watching Fifteen Dogs at Crow’s Theatre.

Theatre 2023: Jack Absolute Flies Again

 With all the streaming options on TV, my husband Rich and I don’t often go to a cinema to watch mainstream movies, although in December 2021 we did head out to watch the Jets and the Sharks battle on a large screen in Steven Spielberg’s remake of the iconic musical West Side Story.

However, we do love going to watch London’s National Theatre plays, which are filmed live performances that are then shown at movie theatres across North America.  This gives us the chance to watch West-End plays and musicals that might never make it to Toronto, with the original (often all-star) cast.  Watching a filmed version of a play always gives you the best seat in the house, with both closeups and long shots when appropriate, as well as behind-the-scenes interview segments shown before the play starts or at intermission.  Past filmed plays often show up as rentals on National Theatre At Home in case you miss the limited screenings (usually two per play).

Last year we saw Jodie Comer’s tour-de-force performance in Prima Facie (Latin for “burden of proof”) where she held us breathlessly enthralled for almost 2 hours with no intermission. The one-woman play deals with a brash, intelligent, and successful defense attorney whose views on the fairness of the legal system related to sexual assault radically changes when she herself is date-raped and seeks justice. Less to our liking was Straight Line Crazy, the biographical play about Robert Moses (1888-1981), New York’s head urban planner and Parks Commissioner between 1934-1960.  Moses’ bullying personality and undeterrable drive led to the construction of highways and bridges across New York City. This happened often at the expense and displacement of poor, under-privileged and predominantly black residents who resided in the path of the construction. Ralph Fiennes did a fine job portraying Moses, but perhaps because the character came across as so obnoxious and unsympathetic, we just did not enjoy this play as much.

The first National Theatre play that we watched in 2023 was a delightful comedy called Jack Absolute Flies Again, co-written by Richard Bean, the playwright behind the comedy One Man Two Guvnors, and actor Oliver Chris who we have seen in several other National Theatre plays. Jack Absolute Flies Again is a modernized reimagining of a famous 1775 “Comedy of Manners” play called “The Rivals” by Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

Comedy of Manners plays were popular during the Restoration period (1660-1710) and were witty comedies that mocked behaviour, speech patterns and manners of various social groups, especially the upper class.  They usually featured bawdy, sexually explicit (for the times) dialogue, rakish behaviour, gossip, intrigue, scandals, rivalry, as well as romance, love and marriage.  Stock characters included pretentious fops or dandies, clever but duplicitous maids who mishandle letters and messages, schemers, jealous lovers, and rivals for the affection of the female lead.

Although a bit past its heyday, Richard Sheridan wrote The Rivals in the Comedy of Manners style with all its expected tropes.  The heroine is Lydia Languish, a young heiress who feels it would be romantic to give up her fortune and marry a poor man for the sake of love alone.  To pursue her, wealthy army Captain Jack Absolute pretends to be the penniless foot soldier Ensign Beverley.  At the same time, Jack’s uncle Sir Anthony Absolute and Lydia’s aunt Mrs. Malaprop try to force a financially beneficial arranged union between Jack and Lydia, which Lydia adamantly resists. Two other rivals (unsophisticated landowner Bob Acres and Irish baronet Lucius O’Trigger) vie for Lydia’s affections. A secondary romantic pairing involves Lydia’s cousin and Sir Anthony’s ward Julia Melville, who is engaged to Jack’s best friend, the insecure and unreasonably jealous Roy Faulkland. A final romantic complication is introduced when Mrs. Malaprop writes anonymous loves letters to O’Trigger, the object of her infatuation, but Lucius believes the letters are from Lydia. Mistaken identifies and hijinks ensue with the mischievous maid Lucy adding to the confusion.

Sheridan infuses humour in the character of Mrs. Malaprop by having her misuse words in a failed attempt to sound intelligent.  When trying to get Lydia to forget about Beverley, Malaprop says “you must illiterate him from your memory” (instead of saying “eliminate” or “obliterate”?). Mrs. Malaprop’s mangling of words became so popular that the terms “malaprop” and “malapropism” are now valid words in the dictionary.  If you search for the etymology of these terms, you will see a reference to The Rivals.

In addition to Malaprop, Sheridan’s choice of surnames for his characters invokes interesting connotations.  The name “Absolute” makes Jack seem like a strong, solid heroic protagonist while the name "Languish" portrays Lydia as the impressionable ingenue who pines for the type of romance found in books.  Acres is an appropriate name for the landowner while “O’Trigger” alludes to the impulsive, hot-headedness of the baronet who is quick to challenge perceived opponents to duels.

Moving the basic premise of The Rivals to more contemporary times, Jack Absolute Flies Again is set amidst the Battle of Britain in August 1940, and was written to commemorate  the 80th anniversary of that event.  The action takes place on the property of Mrs. Malaprop’s estate, which has been converted into an RAF air base. Jack Absolute is a brash, cocky fighter pilot and squadron leader in the RAF.  Heiress Lydia Languish is an aircraft delivery pilot, who is a feisty feminist and more than Jack’s intellectual equal. Jack’s attempts to woo Lydia are thwarted by her socialist ideals which dictate that she should love a “common man” rather than a “gentleman”.  

Lydia throws her attentions towards the grease-covered head mechanic Dudley Scunthorpe, who in turn is in love with Mrs. Malaprop’s maid Lucy.  In keeping with the main story line of The Rivals, Jack decides to impersonate Dudley to continue his pursuit of Lydia. But instead of merely creating a persona of lower status and income, Jack pretends to be another character within the play, leading to hilarious scenes of mistaken identity in the mode of a bedroom farce, but without the bedrooms.  The character of Bob Acres remains but is now a comical Australian pilot in the same squadron, while the O’Trigger character is now Sikh pilot Bikram Khattri (nicknamed Tony as "no one can pronounce his name").  While Acres vies for Lydia’s affections through ludicrous actions and gestures, Tony struggles to write love letters, both to hilarious effect.

The sub-plot of Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony trying to set up the young couple remains in this new version, as well as the malapropisms which are delivered in rapid succession. Just within one scene, Mrs. Malaprop talks about employing a little centrifuge (i.e. subterfuge), training the mammary to forget (memory), falling in love with the gardener’s appendage (apprentice) and making an involuntary emission (admission).  Some of the mistakes are subtly suggestive and some are outright lewd.  With the O'Trigger character no longer in this version, the romantic pairing becomes one between Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony, leading to many more humorous interactions.  The relationship between Julia and Roy remains the same as in The Rivals.

In both versions of this comedy, Lydia’s various rivals gather for what is equivalent to “a duel”.  In the Rivals, the duels are to be fought with swords with Bob Acres being goaded into challenging who he thinks is Ensign Beverley and O’Trigger wanting to fight Jack Absolute. Playwright Richard Sheridan had firsthand knowledge about duels, since he fought two of them himself over the honour of his fiancée, suffering serious injuries in the second duel.  The newer version of the play cleverly turns this scene into a laugh-out-loud boxing match where the real Dudley turns out to be a champion boxer who doesn’t really understand why he needs to fight but is up for the challenge against the three hapless rivals. Jack Absolute Flies Again also throws in a dance interlude, as Jack and Lydia reminisce about when they first met and won a dance contest together.

Jack Absolute Flies Again makes some interesting use of the “Breaking of the 4th Wall” trope.  In the very first scene of the play, the actress portraying Mrs. Malaprop addresses the audience directly.  She intimates that she only got the part because Imelda Staunton was not available and Helen Mirren thought she was too young for the role, but that Kristen Scott Thomas would be her understudy on Wednesdays.  The maid Lucy also speaks to the audience with asides that indicate her actions are to be expected in a Comedy of Manners play.  And at one point when Jack is in total distress over an argument with Lydia, Lucy quips “Relax, it’s a comedy .. you’re going to get the girl!” These little interactions draw in the audience and makes us feel like we are part of the fun.

Despite being a comedy and a very funny one at that, Jack Absolute Flies Again never lets you forget that the action is taking place in midst of a war. Whether it is the sound of airplanes buzzing overhead, the military uniforms worn by characters for many scenes, or discussions about the war and air battles in the dialogue, the serious subject is always lurking underneath the laughter and frivolity.  To close off Act 1, the members of the RAF squadron race to their planes (off stage) and then an aerial battle is shown via video with sound and images of the pilots in their cockpits as they fight off a German air attack. By Act 2, the mood has lightened again as all the misunderstandings and mistaken identities are eventually resolved and the various sets of lovers are properly paired up again, as would be expected from a traditional romantic comedy.

Surprisingly though, this was not the end of the play.  A second German attack sends the boys back to the skies and this time, tragedy occurs. The play ends on a sad note, reminding the audience that war is not a matter of fun and games.  I felt a bit cheated by this ending, as I had come to watch a comedy and was not prepared for the abrupt change in tone, which felt tacked on and a case of “bait and switch”.

Despite my ambivalence towards the ending, in general I was happy that we were able to watch the filming of this play.  I would love to rent it to watch again if it shows up on National Theatre At Home, in order to catch more of the malapropisms that flew by so quickly.  Next up for National Theatre at Cineplex will be The Crucible, showing in March.

Theatre 2022: Mirvish - Shark is Broken, Mean Girls, Fisherman's Friends

The 2021/2022 Mirvish subscription season ended with a bang with the stellar musical Singing in the Rain.  My husband Rich and I looked forward to the start of the new 2022/2023 season since the lineup sounded fantastic.  We have finally upgraded our subscription seats to the second price tier in the Dress Circle and will be sitting next to our friends for the entire season.  No more looking jealously at their seats two rows ahead of us!

Unfortunately, the first show of the new Mirvish season started with a whimper.  The Shark Is Broken is a play about the troubles that arose during the making of the 1975 hit movie Jaws that starred Robert Shaw as Quint, a professional shark fisherman, Richard Dreyfuss as Hooper, an oceanographer and Rob Schneider as Brody, the police chief. Shaw’s son Ian co-wrote and is also cast as his father in the play.  The lengthy show with no intermission depicts the three actors bickering for 90 minutes while sitting in a bobbing boat, waiting for the mechanical shark (which is never shown) to be repaired.  I read that the best part of the show was the set design, which included a real boat that appears to be sitting on actual water, thanks to some brilliant video effects.

Sadly, the rest of the show did not fare as well, as we had heard negative reviews from various sources.  My brother-in-law returned from the performance and promptly messaged me with “Well that was 90 minutes that I will never get back again”. The headline of the review from Now Toronto was “The Shark is Broken, and so is this play”.  The Globe and Mail called it a “performance piece by the son of Quint” rather than a fleshed-out play.  Nevertheless, I wanted to watch this play and come to my own conclusions about it.  I also wanted to sit in and experience the view from our new seats!  Alas, the theatre gods were not with me since I caught COVID just before we were supposed to go to the show.  The only bright side of this is that if I had to miss a show from our subscription series, this is the one that I would least regret. Our friends who we gave our tickets  told me that we didn’t miss much.  The closest I got to the eponymous shark was when I posed in front of the giant plastic one positioned in front of the Royal Alexandra Theatre.  But given that no shark was ever seen in the play, I guess this is the closest that anyone else got as well.

I would have been much more disappointed if I had to miss Mean Girls the Musical, since I love musicals in general and have fond memories of watching the 2004 movie starring Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Amanda Seyfried and Tina Fey that this show is based upon. Luckily, I recovered in time to watch this Mean Girls the Musical and was delighted by the wonderful job that was done in adapting the movie into the musical.

Like the movie, the musical deals with the coming-of-age story of Cady, an intelligent but naïve teenager who goes to an American public school for the first time after growing up and being homeschooled in Africa.  Cady initially makes friends with outcasts Janis and Damian, who teach her about navigating high school politics, cliques and social hierarchy. Janis encourages Cady to infiltrate and try to bring down “the Plastics”, a trio of popular “mean girls” considered to be school royalty, led by Queen Bee Regina George along with her minions, Gretchen, who is desperate to be liked, and Karen, who is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Cady is on board with the plan, especially after Regina cruelly and deliberately thwarts Cady’s attempts to connect with her love interest, Aaron, who is Regina’s ex-boyfriend.  But soon Cady loses her way and is seduced by the power and popularity of being one of the Plastics.

The initial song “A Cautionary Tale” sung by Janis and Damian, foreshadows the plot with the telling lines “How far would you go to be popular and hot”, and “Mean is easier than nice”. Regina is introduced with my favourite song on the musical, “Apex Predator” which compares her to a wild beast like the ones Cady would be familiar with in Africa.  Janis starts the song by conveying warnings such as “She’s the queen of beasts, she can smell your fear” while Cady realizes the advantages of being associated with Regina by singing “I’m in her pride, I have hitched a ride, with the apex predator”.

While the plot of the musical follows the movie quite closely, there have been some not-too-subtle changes which modernize a few scenarios and address current sensibilities and political-correctness touchpoints.  The most obvious change between the 2004 movie and the 2018 Broadway musical is the advancement of the Internet, social media and the use of cell phones where phone calls have evolved into texting. In the movie, to bully a rival, Regina (played by a young Rachel McAdams) uses her cell phone to call and speak to the girl’s mother.  This scene obviously did not make it into the musical.

Yet, one anachronistic element of the movie that is retained in the musical is the “burn book”, a pink-covered scrapbook of nasty slurs, rumours and disses that the Plastics use to disparage their enemies or those they consider beneath them. Having an actual physical book seems out of place in our online world.  But the book is so integral to the plot and so prominently visible to a live audience that I guess it was important to keep it.

The musical further pushes the movie’s themes of female empowerment and anti-bullying rather heavy-handedly by invoking references to #MeToo. At one point in the musical number “Stop”, Karen sings about being convinced by a boy she liked to send him nude photos which he then posted on the Internet.  Stopping the song (pun intended), she awkwardly throws in the comment that “Someone should teach boys to not do that in the first place”. This elicits the obligatory cheer from the audience but totally takes you out of the flow of the song.  The initial set design at the start of the show mimics pages from the Burn Book (or they could be interpreted as Instagram posts) with mean comments like “Saggy Boobs”, “Carol & Lucas Still Virgins”, “Masturbated with a Frozen Hot Dog”.  By the curtain call, after lessons were learned by all, the pages take on affirming messages like “Teen Female Power”, “Respect”, “Dignity”.

Mean Girls is a fun musical with great, upbeat songs that propel the plotline and good choreography. I found the sound to be too loud which muffled the lyrics being a sung and the words being spoken.  Good thing I listened to the soundtrack before watching the show, so I had an idea of what to listen for.

Our final Mirvish show to wrap up 2022 is another musical based on a movie, which in turn is based on a true story. Fisherman’s Friends is a folk music group hailing from Port Isaac, Cornwall, England, who sing traditional songs of the sea. The group is comprised mostly of fishermen, coast guards and lifeboat-men whose voices blend in beautiful harmony. Starting in 1995, ten friends sang together as an a cappella group, regularly performing on the Port Isaac Platt (harbour) with the waves of the Atlantic Ocean crashing behind them.  In 2010, they were discovered while singing on the Platt and were signed to a million-pound contract with Universal Music Group, a major record label.  Their first album debuted at #9 on the UK charts, going gold by selling over 500,0000 units. They have since released four more albums, sang for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 and toured both at home and abroad.  In the intervening years, band members have come and gone, and the number of members in the group has fluctuated. With the addition of new members who play guitar and accordion, the group has added instrumentation to their performances.

The earlier albums consisted mostly of famous old sea shanties. A sea shanty follows a pattern of call and response, where the shanty man or lead singer belts out the main lyrics of the song, to which the remaining members sing a repeated chorus in unison. The group seems to rotate the role of shanty man from song to song.  Some of the more popular shanties and the ones I like the best include Drunken Sailor, Nelson’s Blood, Wellerman, John Kanaka and Keep Hauling.  Most of these shanties are lively, foot-stomping jigs, sometimes with humorous lines such as all the suggestions about “What will we do with a drunken sailor?”.  The Cornish accent is also prominently heard in the songs, such as when they sing the word “early” and it is pronounced as “er-lie”.

Fisherman’s Friends also sing slower, soulful songs that describe hard times in Cornish history and the dangers of the sea. The folk song Cousin Jack, written by English folk-rock performer Steve Knightley, is based on an 1860 poem describing the 19th century Cornish miners who were known as “Cousin Jacks” who emigrated abroad looking for work.  Proportionately, Cornwall lost more of its population to this emigration than Scotland or Ireland. Wistful lyrics describing this loss include “Where there’s a mine or a hole in the ground, that’s where I’m headed, that’s where I’m bound ... I’ll leave my country behind, I’m not coming back”.

A beautiful, haunting song called Widow Woman was written by Fisherman’s Friend members Bill Hawkins, Jon Cleave. It describes the local legend of a tragedy that occurred in Port Quinn, a neighbouring cove near Port Isaac.  As the story goes, all the men of Port Quinn were out at sea herring fishing when a huge storm blew in, drowning the entire fleet and making widows of every woman in the village.  In some tellings there were 24 widows while in others, there were 32. The song Widow Woman starts with the lyrics “Why do you sit widow woman? Why do you stare out at me?” as if the sea itself is posing the question.

In 2019, a U.K. movie also called Fisherman’s Friends was released, loosely based on the group’s rise to fame.  To add drama and romance to the plot, the movie adds a slick, cynical London music executive named Danny who discovers the group and becomes their manager.  It then throws in a love interest for him in Alwyn, a feisty fisherman’s daughter and mother to her own a cute young daughter. The movie follows the traditional romantic comedy clichés of the “meet cute”, and the “boy meets girl, boy loses girl and boy gets girl back” trope. Amidst the romance were a few other fictional plotlines including the local bar being deep in debt, Danny’s struggles to get a record company to give the group a chance, and the death of one of the elder members of the band.

Throughout the movie, songs are sung by the Fisherman’s Friends, with the real members augmenting the singing of the actors. It depicts the group singing on their lobster trawlers, on the Platt, in the Port Isaac church while recording a demo and in various locations in London while trying to secure their big break.  The film was well received, and a sequel subtitled “One And All” has just been released in November, 2022.  The saying “One And All” (perhaps a riff on “All For One and One for All” from the Three Musketeers?) is a tenet that the group stands by and is the title of their second commercial album.

In 2021,a live musical of Fisherman’s Friends debuted in Truro, Cornwall before heading to Toronto to play at the Mirvish Theatre in 2022.  It is of note that the show has come to Toronto without first debuting on London’s West End. The musical closely follows the general plot and characters in the movie with a few differences. The role of Alwyn’s daughter has been dropped, since it did not make sense to have a child actor in the cast for eight shows a week when her character did not really contribute to the storyline.  The reason for Danny coming to Cornwall has been extremely simplified for the musical (arriving on vacation) compared to the movie (attending a stag party where he is pranked into trying to sign the Fisherman’s Friends to a record deal).  In both cases, Alwyn’s father Jim is initially against trying for a record deal, but the motivations are different.  In the movie, it is merely suspicion of outsiders and a desire for to maintain the status quo of their simple but content life, while the musical alludes to Alwyn’s wayward mother who deserted the family in search of fame and fortune as a singer in London.

The musical opens up with some creative staging using ropes and pulleys to simulate a fishing boat swaying through rough waters while the shanty "Keep Hauling" is sung.  It is interesting to note that along with The Shark is Broken, this is the second show of the 2022/23 Mirvish season that involves staging of a boat on water.  In Fisherman's Friend The Musical, the boats return for two more scenes including a thrilling sea search and rescue sequence that involved fog and search lights.

As with any adaptation from film to live musical, there are many more songs and sea shanties to fill out the show, and it is not just the Fisherman’s Friends members who are singing.  The main female characters including the bar owner’s pregnant wife, Alwyn’s grandmother, and especially Alwyn (who is now an accomplished guitar-strumming singer in her own right), get to perform a few numbers. Not quite the typical musical or even the typical jukebox musical, the lyrics of songs make no attempt to advance the plot, which usually is a must for me to enjoy a musical. But as a "bio-pic" musical, the shanties are integral to lives of the Fisherman's Friends and so joyful to listen to,  that it didn’t matter.

Given the feel-good origin story of the real group, it is not a surprise that both the movie and the musical are fun to watch and leave you with a warm, happy feeling while you exit the theatre humming or singing the words to catchy sea shanty tunes.

Theatre 2022: CanStage - Choir Boy, Little Dickens

Towards the end of 2022, we watched two shows at the theatres owned by the Canadian Stage Company. We always need to take care to check which theatre our shows are playing at, since the Bluma Appel Theatre (on Front St. between Yonge St. and Church St.) and the Berkeley Theatre (near Front Street and Parliament St.) are a good 13 to 15 minutes' walk apart.  Showing up at the wrong theatre would not be an easy mistake to recover from.

Choir Boy is a play first performed in 2012 in London, England and then on Broadway in 2018.  It is a coming-of-age story revolving around five members of a prominent gospel choir at a prestigious all-black school for boys. Pharus, the self-proclaimed best singer and leader of the choir is an effeminate, gay senior whose brash and sassy façade hides a hurt and vulnerable young man who has battled homophobic slurs ever since he was a child.  Bobby, the headmaster’s nephew, is Pharus’ rival for the choir lead, and never misses an opportunity to harass and denigrate his nemesis.  But Pharus finds refuge in the “healing power of music” and takes solace in his belief in his own talent amidst the pressures to conform to social norms.  He is not afraid to push buttons to promote his own ambitious agenda, even when it invokes jealousy and pushback from others like Bobby.

The other members of the choir include “Junior”, who is Bobby’s sidekick and acts as comic relief, David, who intends to become a priest but struggles with his own demons as well as with issues trying to please a strict father, and Anthony, Pharus’ athletic and self-confident roommate, who is generous and accepting of Pharus’ queerness, in strict contrast to Bobby’s reactions.  In the current cast of this show, each of the five choir boys is a well-defined character with very distinctive personality traits and even physical appearance.  It is interesting to note that in an original 2013 staging of the show for Manhattan Theatre Club, there were more boys in the cast. Based on what I saw in Youtube clips, the extra boys were more backup singers and dancers for the musical numbers as opposed to additional characters who contributed to the plot.  I like that the current version of the show focuses on just the five main characters, as I would have found the extra ones to be distracting.

Integrated between dramatic discussions and arguments about identity, ambition, privilege, racism, slavery, and homophobia are beautiful performances of spiritual hymns, sung a capella by the choir in perfect harmony. The only song that sounded familiar to me was “Motherless Child”, and only because John Legend released a jazzy, pop version of it. In Choir Boy, this haunting slave song that laments being taken “a long, long way from home” is sung by the boys while they are in the showers of their dormitory.  In a feat of superb staging, the boys are shown seemingly nude, each behind a frosted shower door, with actual water coming out of the faucets and a horizontal strip of tiles strategically obscuring their private regions. Both symbolically and physically stripped naked of their defenses, this powerful song conveys an extra sense of vulnerability, sorrow and suffering.  This setting plays an important role in a climactic scene towards the end of the show.  This is a deep and thought-provoking play, made even more special by the glorious, soulful choral singing.

We have wanted to watch a marionette show by the renowned Canadian puppeteer Ronnie Burkett for quite some time now.  We finally got our wish with Little Dickens, a raunchy re-telling of The Christmas Carol which comes with the warning that children under age 16 will not be admitted! 

For over 40 years, Burkett has been designing and building his intricate marionettes, as well as writing and performing his own shows that are designated for “adults only”.  Burkett provides all the speaking and singing voices and controls the marionettes while in plain sight, hovering above the “puppet stage” on “the bridge”.  We had the perfect seats to watch Little Dickens, in the centre of the third row from the stage.  We could clearly see Burkett's spread-out fingers manipulating the strings of up to two marionettes at a time. More puppets could be on stage but the ones he was not actively moving were hung loosely from stands protruding from the bridge. It was amazing to watch his dexterity as he could make the head, limbs and occasionally even props move separately or simultaneously, all while providing dialogue for the puppets that propelled the storyline.  It was incredible to witness the energy and stamina that he exerted in singlehandedly carrying on the show for almost two hours without intermission.

Recipient of many awards and honours including the Order of Canada, Ronnie Burkett became fascinated with puppets at an early age.  He was inspired by the puppet show in classic 1965 movie musical The Sound of Music and idolized Bill Baird, the puppeteer behind that iconic scene.  Ronnie confessed in an interview for the Theatre Museum Canada that as a child, he had written to Baird several times offering to move in with him in order to learn from him.  Baird never responded. Burkett laughed ruefully and said that if some random kid wrote to him today offering to come live with him, he would not respond either!  Ronnie eventually did get to perform in New York with Baird’s puppet theatre company.

Earlier in his career, Burkett would write shows with fixed scripts and plots while creating the puppets that would animate each story.  In 2013, he came up with a new concept called “The Daisy Theatre” which involved a set up over 50 marionettes who would perform a show that included vaudeville, burlesque and cabaret acts, but was largely improvised and included audience participation.  Each performance would be different and partially dictated by the reactions of the crowd.

Little Dickens combined his two concepts, using the basic outline of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but casting his Daisy Theatre puppets to play the main characters of the classic tale, as well as some periphery roles that went beyond the well-known story. To set the tone, the first scene of the show featured a mainstay marionette act of the Daisy Theatre. The sultry striptease artist Dolly Wiggler performed a burlesque act while singing the highly sexually suggestive song “Santa Got Stuck in my Chimney”.  As she strutted back and forth across the stage, she would peel off another layer of clothing until she was down to her underwear and pasties. Getting on with the Christmas Carol storyline, another stock puppet character, Esme Massengill, the selfish, self-aggrandizing has-been actress, took on the role of Scrooge.  Other members of the Daisy Theatre entourage played roles such as the alms collectors, Bob Cratchit and the ghosts of Christmas past and present.  Other than Esme, the star of Little Dickens is also the star of the Daisy Theatre.  It is Schnitzel, the tiny elfin fairy-child, playing the role of Tiny Tim complete with a limp and a crutch.  Burkett’s skill was on full display as he manipulated the marionette across the stage, working the arms, legs and crutch with perfect timing.

Supplementing the characters from the main story were various vaudeville acts including a ventriloquist, a Frank Sinatra impersonator, a song by grandmotherly, small-town Alberta redneck Edna Rural dressed up as a Christmas Tree, and even a comedy schtick by no other than Jesus!  There are no boundaries that Burkett does not dare cross! Interlaced between the dialogue are curse words and lewd jokes such as listing all the Christmas carols with the words “come” in the lyrics (All Come all Ye Faithful, Here Comes Santa Claus, Baby Please Come Home for Christmas …).  “I could go on all night”, Burkett quips.

As is common in the Daisy Theatre, there was scenes requiring audience participation. One woman sitting on the front row was asked to come on stage to wind the box that would make a series of “orchestra puppets” pop up and play the background music to Jingle Bells while the rest of the crowd was encouraged to loudly sing along.  In that same skit, a socialite puppet waxed poetically about her shirtless pool-boy Ray. A man on the aisle was persuaded to come on stage to play the part of Ray while wearing a Santa hat and jingling sleigh bells.  Burkett teasingly instructed him to take his sweater off to properly play the role and incredibly, he did (probably to the horror of his wife!).  Being a great sport, this man pranced around shirtless, ringing his bells while we continued to lustily sing the last verses of Jingle Bells.  Afterwards, I leaned over to my husband Rich and whispered, “This is why you never sit in accessible seats and never make eye contact to avoid being picked”.  In another scene, a witch puppet tried to take on the part of one of the Christmas Carol ghosts and was told that the audience would not go for this and would swear at her.  Then en masse, the audience was instructed to yell “F***-you Debbie” at the puppet.  This was probably a common routine of the Daisy Theatre improv shows but it was not clear if our crowd would participate.  When the time came, our entire group yelled out the curse and then roared with laughter as the puppet slunk back off stage.  Another man came on stage to flip lyric cards that prompted us to sing along to the carol "Deck the Halls".  Burkett feigned disappointment when this new volunteer declined to take off his shirt.  After his stint, Ronnie asked the man's wife to come up to play the non-speaking role of the Ghost of Christmas Future, giving her a black robe and a skeletal arm as props. Her job was to point "over here" and "over there" based on verbal cues from Esme, but being sure not to block the puppet with her arm.

Attending and participating in this show in English pantomime style was so much fun and such a unique experience.  After the initial fascination in watching Burkett manipulate the puppets, you eventually get immersed in the show and just watch the marionettes as they act out the story. For most of the show, the action was fast-paced and joyful and hilarious. It was a good thing that we picked a show that was at least partially based on a well-known story like A Christmas Carol, since it gave us some familiarity and structure to follow as we took in the rest of the craziness that accompanied it.

The only part that didn’t work that well for me was the finale where the Christmas Carol part of the story was wrapped up too quickly and unsatisfactorily and then the show slowed right down to try to deliver an “emotional” ending. Schnitzel delivered a speech thanking the audience and then was joined by Esme and Edna to sing a final inspirational song. The ending zapped the energy out of the show and felt like a bit of a letdown to me after everything that came before.  Still, overall I loved the puppetry and would like to see another Ronnie Burkett production.

Theatre 2022: Crow's Theatre - Red Velvet

 Crow’s Theatre is located in the east end of Toronto, at Carlaw St.and Dundas St. East, far away from the downtown theatre district that is dominated by Mirvish-owned theatres.  Crow’s Theatre seems to specialize in avant-garde productions, often with very innovative staging set up in its two performance spaces. In 2019, when we watched The Flick about ushers in a movie cinema, we walked into Crow’s main space to find stadium seating where the stage would normally be, mirroring the stadium seating that represented our seats for the show.  In 2020 when we watched Julius Caesar (just before everything shut down for the pandemic), we were in that same theatre but sat in stadium seating in the round while the action took place at floor level.  We watched Red Velvet, as the final production of 2022 and found a traditional stage setup. We plan to watch two other shows next year and are interested to find out how they will be presented.

The play Red Velvet is based on real-life events that led a black man to take on the titular role in Shakespeare’s Othello at London’s prestigious Theatre Royal, Covent Gardens in 1833. The part of the Moorish military commander was originally played, in blackface, by British actor Edmund Kean (1787-1833), considered the most famous stage actor of the time.  Kean was starring in the play alongside his son Charles, who was cast as his duplicitous advisor and nemesis Iago.  When Edmund suddenly fell collapsed on stage during a performance and died shortly after, Theatre Royal’s manager Pierre Laporte controversially hired African American thespian and noted Shakespearean actor Ira Aldrige (1807-1867) as Kean’s replacement.

Aldridge started acting at age 15 in New York City but since black actors were not well-received in the United States, he moved to England.  He played Othello in a small London Theatre when he was 17, becoming the first black actor to take on the role. He was also an abolitionist who often spoke out against slavery. Aldrige continued to star in abolitionist dramas as well as Shakespearean plays across Europe.  By the time of his death in 1867 in Lodz, Poland, Ira had become an acclaimed and award-winning stage actor who acted alongside white actresses, despite facing racism throughout his career. Both Edmund and Charles had met Aldridge and supported his career, prior to Aldrige filling in as Othello following Edmund’s passing.  Unfortunately, the British press were not as generous and Ira only lasted for two performances before the show was canceled, receiving undeservedly scathing and racist reviews. 

Not many details have been documented about this brief period when Aldrige stepped in as Othello at Covent Gardens. Playwright Lolita Chakrabarti’s work Red Velvet takes the basic facts and re-imagines what might have happened during this time. In her play, Aldridge joins an all-white cast who regard him with varying degrees of unease, fear, and even racist hate. Using dramatic license to add conflict to the situation, Edmund Kean is merely ill, not dead, Charles Kean now plays Cassius instead of Iago, and his fiancé Ellen Tree has the role of Desdemona. Charles assumed that he would take over the role of Othello and is appalled and aghast that it was assigned to a black man instead!  In real life, Charles and Ellen Tree did act together and eventually married but there is no indication that she was in the play with Ira.

Ira Aldridge comes across as a confident, talented actor who espouses realism in his style of acting. In a scene where Othello confronts Desdemona about her supposed affair with Cassius, Aldrige roughly manhandles Ellen (with her permission).  Having a black man touch a white woman in this way, even if it is just acting, is not well received. The reviews by the British Press are damning and lead to Aldridge’s termination after a bitter argument with Laporte, who had championed Ira’s hiring in the first place. It is strongly implied that Pierre Laporte is a closeted homosexual and there is a distinct homoerotic feel to the interactions between the two men.  I’m not sure if this was also added in for dramatic purposes, as nothing that I have read supports this.  In their argument leading to Aldridge’s firing, Laporte hints at his own burdens in overcoming the stigma of his sexuality in order to succeed in his field.

One interesting character is the black servant Connie, whose job it is to serve tea to the actors. Although she is prominently positioned at the back but smack-dab in the centre of the stage, she does not speak through most of the show.  Connie silently fulfills her duty as tea-lady, but visibly reacts to discussions about slavery and abolition, and the overt bigotry shown to Ira by some of the other cast members. Even the more liberal characters who claim to support the end of slavery basically treat her as a slave who is at their beck and call.  Her reactions are magnified as she listens to the horribly racist theatre reviews that are read aloud by the cast, and she doggedly tries to protect Ira and hide the newspapers from him when he demands to see them.

The events of 1833 in Covent Gardens are told in flashback and are bookmarked by scenes of an aged Aldrige in Poland, 1867, just prior to his death. He is getting ready to play King Lear and it is ironic that he is shown putting on white makeup and white gloves to hide his dark skin, doing the opposite of what Kean did to play Othello.  The show starts off with two characters speaking German(?) for several minutes before Aldrige appears and we learn that the woman is a female reporter who has barged her way into his dressing room in hopes of an interview.  The misogyny that she deals with in trying to gain respect from her male colleagues is set up as a parallel to the racism that Aldridge has endured.  In answering her questions, Ira reminisces about the events of Covent Garden, setting the crux of the play into motion.

This was an interesting and enjoyable play that taught us about an important time in theatrical history, while addressing racism, homophobia and misogyny.  That is quite the accomplishment for one evening of entertainment.

Theatre 2022: Soulpepper - Bad Parent, My Ex-Boyfriend's Yard Sale

My husband Rich and I were amongst one of the first theatre lovers to discover and enjoy Ins Choi’s now famous play Kim’s Convenience. We stumbled upon it quite by accident during the 2011 Toronto Fringe Festival where it had its theatrical debut. That year, we had purchased a 10-pack of tickets that we could redeem at the location of each show that we selected to watch.  Usually, we could stroll up about 15-20 minutes before the start of the show, get our tickets, join the line and be ushered in shortly after. For the Kim’s Convenience showing, we misread the time of the show and ended up getting there over an hour before the start. To our surprise, there was already a long lineup waiting to get in and when we went to redeem our tickets, we found out that we had scored the last two tickets for the show and that it was sold out for the rest of the run!  Word of mouth had made this the hottest ticket of the festival and we were lucky enough to be a part of that.

The play Kim’s Convenience is Choi’s sweet, semi-autobiographical comedy about a Korean immigrant family that owns and runs a convenience store in Moss Park, Toronto.  The cast for the Fringe show included Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as “Appa”, the fierce head of the family, Jean Yoon as the matriarch “Umma”, Esther Jun as daughter Janet and Ins Choi himself playing the estranged son Jung.  After its success at the Fringe Festival, the play got picked up and remounted in 2012 by Soulpepper with all the main actors reprising their roles.  The show continued to be part of the Soulpepper repertoire for several more years.  We watched this version in 2014 and enjoyed it just as much the second time, even though only Paul Sun-Hyung remained in the role of Appa at that point.

In 2016, the play was further adapted into a Canadian TV sitcom running on CBC for 5 seasons. The show was filmed in Toronto and the storefront, decked out with the “Kim’s Convenience” sign could be found at 252 Queen East during its run.  Even more exciting for us was the fact that our good friend's brother had a recurring, supporting role on the show, as one of Appa's friends who would frequent the store. We watched all the seasons of the TV series until it was unceremoniously canceled in 2021.  Unfortunately, it ended without being able to properly resolve all the plotlines, including the reconciliation between Jung and Appa that gave the original play its heart.

Thus, we were quite excited to hear that Ins Choi had written a new play that is on the Soulpepper lineup for their 2022 season.  We were prepared to buy tickets to watch this play when Soulpepper made an announcement about their ticket price policies.  Probably due to a slow post-COVID return to live theatre for many regular patrons, the company has decided to slash all its ticket prices almost by half.  Now tickets will range from $65 down to $25 for the season.  For those people (like us) who had already purchased tickets at full price, Soulpepper was offering either a refund, or two free tickets to another show.  We happily converted this offer into tickets to see Choi’s new endeavour.

Continuing with the old adage to “write what you know”, Choi’s new play Bad Parent is a two-hander dealing with a married couple’s struggles adjusting to life with their first child, now a 24-month-old toddler. It draws heavily from Ins and wife Mari’s own past experiences and difficulties raising their children.  The actors Josette Jorge and Raugi Yu portray the harried new parents, Nora, a proficient career woman and Charles, an unsettled man-child and wannabe rock star. It is probably pure coincidence, but hearing these names immediately brought to my mind the characters from the classic movie “The Thin Man” who were named Nick and Nora Charles. The baby, named “Mountain”, (symbolizing strength to Charles, but sounding like a wrestler to Nora) is never seen on stage but his loud, anguished wails are heard from off-stage throughout the show.

Jorge and Yu each also play a second role, acting as a character foil to the original character as well as a sounding board for the other parent. Norah, (with an “h”), is the Filipino nanny hired to look after Mountain so that Nora can return to work.  Norah is the perfect housewife, mother and cook, having no problems with coaxing little Mountain to sleep in his own bed.  This is a feat that has so far eluded Nora, who feels much more comfortable and competent in her professional job than she does as a mother. At the office, Nora confides her troubles to co-worker Dale, questioning why it is so much easier to deal with and to talk to him than to Charles. Dale sagely replies that since they are just colleagues, they can present their best versions of themselves to each other, and that their relationship is easier since they don’t love each other and if things get tense, they can always just leave and return to their mutual offices.

Bad parent uses the common theatre device of “breaking the 4th wall” by having the main characters address the audience. But as Rich put it, they don’t just break the 4th wall, they demolish it.  Nora and Charles start the show by bringing microphones up to the front of the stage as if they were doing a stand-up comedy act, and speaking in turn, they describe how they first met, fell in love, got married and had their baby.  From there, the arguments between the pair escalate as the pressures of their lives mount and the cracks in their marriage start to show.  Through it all, they continue to lobby the audience for support as each is trying to gain our approval for their position.  This is taken the extreme when at one point Nora pointedly asks anyone in the audience who thinks she is wrong to raise his or her hand.  One brave man in the row in front of us does so and she disparages him in her rant. You are left to wonder whether he is a plant, or what would have happened if no one had raised their hand (although Rich told me later that he was tempted to do so himself).

After a while, you realize that the audience is a stand-in for society as a whole, and what Nora and Charles crave is external affirmation, whether from friends, family, strangers, or even from the audience, that they are not the bad parents they each fear they are. Nora recalls the incident where she is bottle-feeding Mountain in the park and is chastised by a stranger for not breast-feeding, which she could not for physiological reasons, but Charles did not step up to defend her. It is clear that they are each deeply affected by what others might think of them. Towards the end of the play, they even accuse each other of pandering to the audience, and then both admit that this is exactly what they are doing.  When they finally take off their “public persona masks” and get real with each other, we hear the real version of how they actually met, and it is much less glamorous than what was initially described.

Bad Parent is a very relatable play with a few comedic moments, presented in a smart, interesting way that led to some good discussions and analysis after Rich and I watched it.  But it is not the feel-good comedic gem that Kim’s Convenience was. There is only so long that you can listen to two people yell at each other before it begins to feel a bit oppressive and depressing.  As they battle over child-rearing techniques, division of labour, unpreparedness to be parents, loss of self-worth and identity, and whether their own bad parents make them doomed to be bad parents themselves, it becomes clear that parenthood is difficult and there is no manual on how to make it work.  

It is really great that Ins Choi’s plays have provided much needed work for Asian actors. Unlike Kim’s Convenience which was specifically representing a Korean immigrant family, Bad Parent’s tale is universal and can be recognized by everyone, so to have two Asian actors play the roles in a Soulpepper production is all the more gratifying.

The show that we had already purchased tickets at full price was the one-woman show called “The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale”.  We first bought tickets to watch this comedy in May 2020, but then the pandemic forced the entire run to be canceled before it even started, and our money was refunded.  Over 2 years later, we are finally able to watch it.  I mistakenly thought the title was “My Ex-Boyfriend’s Yard Sale”, implying the protagonist was selling items from a single ex-boyfriend. I imagined a comedic rant about a relationship gone sour, and the cathartic rite of dumping his stuff (at a profit, no less).  The concept of purging remnants of a former romantic relationship reminds me of a previous piece of performance art that we saw during Nuit Blanche 2008.  Titled “Smash It”, the artist tossed items from a past love affair down to the ground from atop a raised cherry picker, then came down and smashed them further with a sledgehammer, all while giving running commentary about what she was destroying and why.

As it turns out, The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale refers to eight items that the show’s author and performer Haley McGee retained from eight different relationships that she had from age 16 to 32.  As an unemployed Canadian actress in major debt while living in London, England, Haley was desperate to generate income while still being able to ply her trade as a working theatrical performer.  She thought of holding a yard sale but realized that all items in her possession that had any monetary value were given to her by ex-boyfriends.  These included a “mixed tape”, necklace, jewelry box, ukulele, vintage typewriter, t-shirt, backpack and bicycle.  But selling these mementos would only result in one-time income and would probably not fetch amounts that reflect her own sentimental valuations of them.  Instead, she came up with the idea of developing a show about selling her exes’ gifts, in which she explains how she developed a mathematical formula to put a price tag on each item, and by extension, allowed her to assign a monetary value on the relationship that each article symbolized. In short, this show tries to create a formula to evaluate “the cost of love”.

McGee’s formula is complex with many variables that fall into the following main categories: Market Value, Time Invested, Narrative Impact, Relationship Index and Wild Cards.  Two factors within the Market Value category required audience participation. As people wandered into the theatre, they were given the opportunity to go up on stage and provide estimates of how much they would spend on each object if it were offered at a yard sale.  The estimates were tallied and later in the show, it was revealed what the average audience estimate was for each item, ranked from lowest to highest.  Haley then provided narratives for the items, explaining how and why she received them, polling the audience afterwards to determine whether an item rose or declined in value after being presented in context.

Speaking non-stop in rapid succession while racing around at a frantic pace, McGee built up and presented her formula with the use of some innovative staging that included scrawling notes on large sheets of brown parcel paper hung on the back wall of the stage, triggering charts to drop from the rafters, opening side and trap doors to reveal more lists, and having special delivery envelopes traverse down a zip line from the back of the theatre onto the stage.  After completing her explanations of the various parts, Haley’s grand finale involves writing out the entire lengthy formula from start to finish, seemingly without needing to take a breath.

Overall, this was an impressive tour de force performance of a memorable show with a very interesting premise.  A few gimmicks did not quite work well though.  Part of the narratives of the items included recorded interviews with the actual ex-boyfriends, which were played aloud on stage.  Unfortunately, some of the voices were muffled and it was difficult to hear.  As Haley’s explanations grew more and more complex and frenzied, she matched this with her actions which included wrapping herself up with the paper on the wall and a big sheet of bubble wrap, holding it all together with masking tape.  There might have been a point to this, but if so, I missed it.  The craziness took my attention away from the ideas that she was trying to convey.  McGee has published a book by the same name as the play (available at the Toronto Public Library), which gives more insight into her life, relationships and the development of the formula and this show.