Theatre 2026: Blyth Festival - Last Mayor of Rusty River, Curveball, Dry Streak

After talking about it for years, this is the first year that my husband Rich and I managed to get to the Blyth Festival in Huron County, Ontario. Founded in 1975, this is a theatre festival dedicated exclusively to the creation and performance of original Canadian plays, often with rural or small-town themes and occasionally based on true local stories. The festival runs each year between June through September and offers 5-7 shows for the season. There is usually a “Bonanza Weekend” where most if not all the shows are programmed to run back-to-back with special passes sold for this event. Two venues are used for the festival—the indoor Memorial Hall (Margaret Stephens Stage) and an outdoor space called the Harvest Stage with an open-air stage and a covered canopy for the audience.

Because of other commitments, we were not able to attend the Bonanza weekend this year.  But we did select three shows that would play on Saturday and Sunday and made a four day long-weekend out of it with visits to nearby Goderich (which we used as a home base) and Bayfield along the way.

Our first show was The Last Mayor of Rusty River, a bluegrass musical comedy which had a very promising premise for zaniness and hilarity. To protest the ineffectiveness of longtime incumbent mayor Larry Fletcher and his obsequiously loyal deputy Jerry Jones, two young, up-start councillors (Tina Stackhouse and Tim McCavity) decide to run Captain Whiskers, a cat, as his opponent in the next election. I wondered if it was intentional that Tim's last name was also the name of one of the lead characters in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats?

The first act of this two-act play sets up the conflict through several council meetings in municipal chambers, held both behind closed doors and open to the press, as represented by reporter Harmony.  The beleaguered clerk Judy Townsend tries in vain to keep decorum. In these meetings, through bluster, bullying and mockery, Fletcher rebuffs any attempts by the younger councillors to discuss important issues like infrastructure, economic growth, or homelessness, which is Tina’s passionate cause. Instead, he focuses on trivial matters such as deciding on a town mascot and tries to hide shady dealings made for his own personal gain. Finally fed up with Fletcher’s incompetence and corruption, Tim declares that he will register his cat Captain Whiskers to run against Fletcher in the upcoming election, since even a cat would do a better job than the current mayor. After this lengthy setup, we are primed for the mockery of an election between a buffoon and a feline.

Instead, the second act takes a tonal shift when Tina decides that she will also run for mayor, making it a three-way race, highlighted by a mayoral debate between the candidates. Suddenly the play becomes very preachy as Tina rails about the plight of the homeless and we feel like we are in a humanities or ethics lecture instead of watching a comedy. Whether intended or not, the character of Fletcher channels our current provincial premier Doug Ford, using his signature catch-phrase “my friends” to preface each sentence and replying with nonsensical doublespeak that never actually answers the questions put before him. Tim’s “interpretation” of what Captain Whiskers had to say produced some funny moments, including the proverbial “cat coughing up of a hairball” joke.  But for the most part, much of the humour felt sapped from the play as it veered from being a satire to trying to make a serious social statement. There were some cute songs sung by actor-musicians who also played the various instruments including piano, drums, guitars, and more. The songs were fun but didn’t really advance the plot to make this a traditional book musical and felt disconnected from the rest of the show. Both Rich and I thought that the play started strongly but waned by the second act and went on a bit too long.

We encountered clever promotional material that hyped up the show before even entering the theatre. There were political signs campaigning for Captain Whiskers found along the streets leading up to Memorial Hall. In the lower-level gallery below the theatre was a polling station where you could vote for Fletcher, Larry (“Experienced, Connected, Probably Knows a Guy) or Whiskers, Captain (“Independent, Curious, Answers to No one…except the Global Tuna Consortium”). We still found this show entertaining to watch, but it did not turn out to be what we expected).

Our next show was based on a true story from the 1950s of women employed at Stratford, Ontario’s Kroehler furniture plant who were part of the company’s softball team. This was during a time when corporate softball and fastball leagues were popular in Southwestern Ontario. After their day jobs assembling furniture, they played competitive baseball at night to packed stands. After a disappointing 1952 season and a slow start with many setbacks in 1953, the Kroehler Girls staged a “legendary” comeback that took them to the regional championships, resulting in their winning both the Provincial Women’s Softball Union Intermediate A and Junior A Championships.

Expanding on the 2021 play “Kroehler Girls!”, Curveball: The Fast-Pitch Ladies from the Factory Floor is a musical that dramatizes this historic achievement. Fictionalized characters, who are amalgamations of real-life players, were developed from extensive research through the archives of the Stratford-Perth Museum.  Some of the stories and dialogue were taken directly from interviews with the original team members.

The cast includes the male coach and six female players who represent the core of the team. There is Honey, the leader and star player who has lost her powerful hitting stroke due to personal issues that become apparent as the show progresses. Doll is the matron of the group with three children to juggle on top of her factory job by day and her baseball job by night. She represents the grit and determination of the players who refused to give up their passion for sports even after marriage. Shack is fierce, abrasive and the most competitive member of the team. Her character is named in honour of Elaine Shackleton, a key member of the 1950s squad. Despite being portrayed as the team’s “sexpot”, Wanda is intelligent, ambitious and determined to break free of traditional women’s roles set by the era’s patriarchal limitations. She dreams of leaving the steno pool to become a saleswoman. Wanda’s sister Georgie is the newcomer to the team, a power pitcher who tries to fit in and win the trust and respect of her teammates. Nora is a dependable player and factory worker who rounds out the core roster and takes part in the game sequences. Finally, James is a bit actor at the newly opened Stratford Theatre where evening performances conflicted with the baseball games that were played at the same time. James becomes a romantic partner for Georgie, thus merging the arts and sports worlds.

This is a heart-felt show about teamwork, camaraderie, “finding your power” and dealing with any “curveballs” that come your way, whether in baseball or in life. It intermixes action-packed sequences from softball practices and games with scenes that delve into the personal lives of the players and their coach, highlighting their hopes, fears and challenges. It also gave historical context to the regional Ontario in the 1950s, reflecting on post-World War II industrial culture, shifting gender roles, the rise of theatre in Stratford, and the start of decline in interest in women’s sports that had become so popular during the war years. 

It was especially fun to watch this show in the open-air Harvest Stage that was decked out with an old scoreboard and faded vintage signs advertising companies of the time including Kroehlers, Canadian Tire, A&P Food Stores, Olin Brown Candies, CJCS 1240 Radio and more.  The composer of the musical played piano at one side of the stage, providing musical accompaniment for tunes that ranged from emotional “I want” songs to upbeat team cheers. Before the show started, the artistic director of the Blyth Festival paid tribute to audience members who were descendants of Kroehler Girls. It was interesting to note that one of the playwrights was Andy Pogson, the nephew of the power-hitting 3rd baseman Marg Syms (née Pogson) on the team.

Our final show was a hilarious comedy that coincidentally starred the entire cast from Last Mayor of Rusty River, plus one additional actor. It was interesting to see all these performers in different roles so soon after watching them in the first show. Dry Streak is set in the fictional town of Stoney Valley, Saskatchewan in 1988 but is based on playwright and grain farmer Leeann Minogue’s real-life experience of living through one of the worse droughts in modern-day prairie history that year while working on her farm in Swift Current Saskatchewan.

The plot focuses on one multi-generational farming family headed by patriarch Peter and his put-upon wife Olive, who is expected to do all the cooking, cleaning and even answering the telephone. They have three children including Denise who is married with rambunctious twin boys (never seen but always getting into trouble), Charlie, the black sheep who spurned farming in favour of a job in radio broadcasting and youngest son John who is returning from the “big city” of Calgary with his new girlfriend Kate. 

This becomes the proverbial “fish out of water” trope as the family strives to accept Kate who is a punk-rock loving, vegetarian and is not interested in marriage and knows nothing about farming or rural life. John was born and bred to be a farmer and wants to take over the farm one day. Big-hearted and ultra-sociable, Kate works hard to fit in and adapt while suffering along with the rest of the community from the stifling heat, dust and lack of rain. One day after having a few too many drinks at a bar, Kate jokes that if it would just rain already, she would run naked down Main Street. Unfortunately, her flippant remark was overheard and reported in the local newspaper and from there things spiral out of control, going national after being picked up by the CBC.

Dry Streak is a wonderful, heartwarming, feel-good story that continues to build and gain momentum until it reaches a hilarious, laugh-out-loud, and thoroughly satisfying twist ending. Structurally, this is exactly how a good play should progress. Of the three shows that we watched, this was by far our favourite and it was so great to end our first Blyth festival on a high note.

Theatre 2026: Tao of the World @ Stratford Festival

Jovanni Sy is a Chinese/Filipino Canadian actor, director and playwright who has become known for reworking classic plays and putting a modern and often Asian spin on them.  As part of Stratford Festival’s 2024 lineup, his play “Salesman in China” dramatized and extrapolated upon the real-life events of American playwright Arthur Miller who traveled to Beijing in 1983 to direct a Mandarin version of Death of a Salesman featuring prominent Chinese actor Ying Ruocheng in the role of Willy Loman. Performed in both English and Mandarin (with surtitles), Salesman in China ponders how these two artists from differing cultural, political and linguistic backgrounds can learn to collaborate, while delving into each man’s personal history. We will see Salesman in China as the last show of our 2026/27 Mirvish subscription series.

This season, Sy is back at Stratford directing his latest play, “Tao of the World”, which is a re-working of the iconic Restoration Comedy, “Way of the World”, written by William Congreve in 1700. Restoration Comedies were written and performed between 1660-1710, beginning during the reign of King Charles II, and sought to rebel against the previous morally-strict Puritan regime led by Oliver Cromwell. As such, the plays featured risqué humour, provocative themes of sexual intrigue and adultery, fast-paced plots, and witty dialogue. Way of the World is also considered a “Comedy of Manners” in that it satirizes the behaviour, etiquette, and conventions of the upper classes.

In “Way of the World”, the charming but manipulative rake Edward Mirabell wishes to marry Millamant, who is set to inherit a sizeable dowry, but only if her aunt Lady Wishfort approves of her choice of husband. Unfortunately, Lady Wishfort despises Mirabell, who previously spurned her sexual advances. Instead, Wishfort considers her nephew Sir Wilfull Witwould as a more suitable spouse for Millamant. Mirabell previously had a secret affair with Wishfort’s daughter Arabella, who he then forced into a loveless marriage with his rival Fainall. Still smitten with Mirabell, Arabella helps him with a plot to compromise and blackmail her mother into agreeing to the marriage. Mirabell arranges for his manservant Waitwell to marry Lady Wishfort’s maid Foible. He then disguises Waitwell as his wealthy (but non-existent) uncle Sir Rowland in order to woo Lady Wishfort. He hopes to cause such a scandal once Waitwell’s identity and marital status is revealed that Lady Wishfort will be forced to consent to the marriage in exchange for suppressing the details. Fainall and Mrs.Marwood (who are also having an affair) find out about the plot and try to blackmail Mrs.Wishfort and Arabella themselves, since they also found out about Arabella’s affair with Mirabell. Fainfall demands control of the family fortune in order to preserve the reputation of the family. But clever Mirabell had anticipated this possibility and had previously arranged for all of Arabella’s assets to be transferred into his control. Grateful for his help, Lady Wistfort agrees to the marriage between Edward and Millamant.

In his graduating thesis for his Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Calgary, Jovanni Sy discussed how he originally intended to stage Way of the World as written, just to prove that a “person of colour” could direct a Restoration Comedy. But while he was reviewing the play, he encountered elements of the plot that have not aged well and would be “problematic for modern Canadian audiences”. These issues included sexist tropes and double standards, lack of agency for the female characters and the overly cruel treatment of Lady Wistford which would no longer be considered funny. Mirabell’s character and actions make him so unlikeable by today’s standards that it would be difficult to portray him as a romantic hero. Also, a five-act play would not go over well with the limited attention spans of audiences today.

All these issues led to Sy’s writing of “Tao of the World”, which takes the basic plot points of Congreve’s play but transposes it to the modern-day world of Singapore’s uber-rich, mixing Restoration Comedy with influences from the 2018 hit movie Crazy Rich Asians. Sy has created a hilarious, fast-paced, intelligent romantic comedy that addresses or modernizes the less acceptable aspects of the source material. The female characters now have agency and drive much of the plot. Arabella is the protagonist of this story instead of Edward. Millicent is strong-willed, sexually adventurous and not afraid to pursue her desires. Arabella’s mother, Lady Helen Yu, is still a vain controlling woman, but her comeuppance is silly and farcical instead of cruel and humiliating. And this is a two-act play where you are having so much fun that the time just flies by.

In Sy’s version, Arabella is a spoiled, privileged rich heiress who was once romantically involved with Edward Lim but broke up with him and married Trevor Flynn instead. She regrets this decision and is still in love with Edward. When he declares that he is in love with and plans to marry her younger cousin Millicent, Arabella is crushed but schemes to break them up. Edward and Millicent’s path to marriage is blocked by Arabella’s mother Lady Helen Yu, who controls access to Millicent’s trust fund inheritance which will be released to her upon her marriage. A second stipulation states that Millicent must still be a virgin (which she already is not at the start of the play—a fact that she tries to conceal). Arabella pretends to help the couple but secretly tries to pair Millicent up with another suitor, Dr. Wilson Wong. Hilarity ensues when it becomes apparent to all that Wilson is gay and very attracted to Arabella’s good friend and confidante Devan, who is in a closeted relationship with his partner Jackson. Devan is the son of a former beloved servant who passed away during the COVID pandemic, a fact that becomes important towards the end of the play.

Following the twists from the source material, Edward tries to gain advantage over Lady Helen by finding incriminating photos from her younger days when she had a tryst with a shockingly famous and influential man who became a monk. As a running joke, each time his name is spoken aloud, it is bleeped over by perfectly timed sound effects including very soft bleeps the one time the name is whispered.  Playing on her fascination with Buddhist monks because of her lost love, Edward convinces Jackson to dress up as one in an attempt to steal the salacious photos. Trevor Flynn and his illicit paramour Eleanor Marwood wind up with the photos and try to blackmail Lady Helen themselves, as well as gain access to half of Arabella’s fortune through divorce. Using a similar plot device as Way of the World, Flynn is thwarted when it turns out that Arabella had signed over the shares of her company to Devan, in a show of love and act of contrition relating to another plot point. With the photos retrieved and the marriage blessed, we get the same happy ending as in the original play.

Sy wrote his comedy in 2021 during the tail end of COVID but set the action in the near future when the pandemic has run its course but is still fresh on everyone’s minds. At the beginning of the play, many of the servants wear masks and there is mention of vaccines. Sy modernized his play by adding gay characters at a time when homosexuality was still illegal in Singapore (repealed in 2023) and gay marriage was prohibited (as it still is today). His female characters are unabashedly overtly sexualized and he gives a voice to the servants who initially just silently observe the hi-jinx of their employers but eventually get to express their grievances. In scenes where karaoke or singing is involved, well-known Mandarin songs are used to give authenticity to the world that Sy has wrapped his characters in.  Not understanding what was being sung (or occasionally being said) in no way detracted from the fun being had.

This was a joyous play to watch with superb acting and comedic timing, especially by Agnes Tong who plays Arabella and Michael Man who plays Wilson. As Arabella, Tong’s facial expressions are priceless, especially when she presents a fake happy face to Edward, then breaks the fourth wall and turns towards the audience to show how she really feels. Man’s portrayal of Wilson’s flustered anxiety and gag reflexes left the audience howling with laughter.  Kudos to Stratford for this avant-garde show that strays from its comfort zone of programming Shakespearean or classical dramas. I think it helped that Tao of the World was performed at the smaller and beautifully renovated Tom Patterson Theatre with its elongated thrust stage, while leaving its mainstream shows in the large theatre spaces.

Theatre 2026: Toronto Fringe Festival

This year, my husband Rich and I selected six shows to watch at the Toronto Fringe Festival—4 musicals and 2 comedies. It is always hit and miss when we choose which shows to watch based merely on several lines of descriptions. We don’t want to wait for reviews to see which are the hot shows since by then, the tickets might be sold out. So, we take our best guess and the results are usually mixed. Our first three shows ran back-to-back-to-back at the Factory Theatre Main Stage.

The first one was a musical called “1920s - Walking Around in a Dream” which takes an excerpt from the plot of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream”, focusing on the two sets of lovers while omitting the subplot involving fairies.  Now set in 1920s Chicago during prohibition, Hermie and Andy are in love and want to get married, but Hermie’s bootlegger/boxing promoter father Eggs wants her to marry up-and-coming boxing champ Dimitry instead. Dimitry was previously involved with Helen who still carries a torch for him but pursues Hermie to please Eggs and further his boxing career. When Hermie and Andy run off into the woods to elope, Helen and Dimitry pursue them. Instead of fairy magic, it is bootlegged moonshine that cause all the romantic chaos.

This was a clever take on the Bard’s classic comedy and the characters are dressed in cool period clothing but given names close enough to the original source that it was easy to figure out the parallels. Unfortunately, we found most of the cast very difficult to hear. At first, we thought that it was the acoustics in the theatre and lack of microphones, but when the actor playing Andy spoke and sang his songs, we heard him crystal-clear. The other actors did not project their voices or enunciate clearly. The situation was exasperated by the fact that the script was deliberately injected with 1920s slang, to the point where a glossary was added to the program to help us understand the lingo. All of this made it more difficult to catch what was being said or sung. Luckily, we were familiar with the plot of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream so we got the gist of it.

Olivia O is a powerful and heart wrenching musical that shines a light on the travesty that has been happening in the United States since 2017 during President Donald Trump’s first term. His government introduced an immigration policy that separated asylum seekers from their children if caught illegally trying to enter the United States. While the migrant parents were imprisoned or deported, any children under age 18 were handed over to the Department of Homeland Security, which in turn shipped them off to “resettlement shelters” and foster homes across the country. The trauma and angst caused by these inhumane separations is highlighted through the plight of a fictitious family.

When 14-year-old Olivia Ortiz and her mother try to cross the US/Mexico border to meet up with Olivia’s American aunt Isabel, the pair are captured by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and forcibly separated. The mother is presumably deported and Olivia is sent to a detention centre to await placement. While there, she meets Gloria, another detainee who has become hardened and jaded after giving up hope that her family will come for her. Olivia is assigned to be fostered by an abusive and corrupt televangelist and his meek wife. In the meantime, Isabel is desperate to find her niece and joins a humanitarian activist and aid group devoted to reuniting families.

This is a touching musical with an important story to tell but once again, we had audio issues. The voices of several actors were much too soft while the music was too loud, obscuring the words even of the singers with powerful voices. The fact that Spanish was intermixed in the dialogue and lyrics compounded the ability to recognize and grasp what was being conveyed. But the emotions rang through loud and clear and the performances by the two leads playing Olivia O and her aunt Isabel were outstanding.

There were very simple sets for this show, comprised mostly of a few wooden benches that were constantly rearranged into different formations. The show began with several rows of benches each with a clump of tin foil that represented thermal blankets given to the children in the detention centre who were awaiting reassignment.  Video was projected at the back of the stage, contrasting happy, colourful crayon drawings of family that Olivia initially sent to her aunt in correspondence prior to their attempted meeting, and then stark photographs of actual detention centres and court houses in El Paso, Texas where much of these atrocities actually took place. The show closed with an image of beaded bracelets like the one Olivia made for Isabel that became a symbol of the search for her.

Other than not being able to hear properly, my only other issue with the musical was with the character of the televangelist who was so evil and diabolical that you could almost see him twirl his metaphorical mustache. Added for dramatic effect to heighten the danger and horrors that Olivia faced, he came across as cartoonish, detracting from the real-life drama being represented, which was terrible enough without this additional plot device. 

Our final show of the day was “Minimum”, a comedic satire about Simon, the bumbling, narcissistic, newly elected Premier of Ontario who is trapped into fulfilling a campaign promise that he flippantly and foolishly made while high on drugs and partying with college girls. Literally caught with his pants down on camera, he declared that he would live on minimum wage while in office, just like many of his constituents. The video goes viral as voters from all age groups (Gen Z to Boomers and even Taylor Swift) all laud him for this pledge, labeling this #MinimumChallenge. Simon is urged to go through with it by his idealistic assistant Grace while his estranged wife Helen (who campaigned for him but now wants a divorce) demands that he renege on the promise.

Simon’s nemesis, “the Prime Minister” chimes in and “supports” Simon’s initiative by canceling all his credit cards, draining his bank accounts and selling his houses (go with it … this is a satire).  Now Simon can no longer afford his daily $9 Frappuccino drinks, can’t pay Toronto’s sky-high rents so must move all the way out to Hamilton, has to transit to work instead of driving his Porsche (which he lovingly calls Portia), and in a repeated sight gag, instead of drinking his expensive booze, he gets his alcohol fix from chugging bright blue Listerine mouthwash.

Throughout the play, not-so-thinly-veiled references take aim at many of the questionable policies of our actual sitting Premier Doug Ford. This includes Ford’s buck-a-beer in grocery stores pledge which Simon one-ups by offering “quarter-a-beer” made available in all schools. There are also jabs about Ford’s “white elephant” spa project, OSAP (which Ford cut funding to but Simon pledges on behalf of the PM to forgive all loans), eliminating the Freedom of Information Act which Simon fully supports in order to hide his many misdeeds (and coincidentally, Ford supports this too), and the private jet that became such a scandal for Ford. In the play, the premier’s jet has a gold toilet.

This play was extremely funny and clever for 60 minutes and best of all, unlike the other two shows, we could hear all the actors perfectly, again proving that there was nothing wrong with the acoustics in the theatre. The problem is that Minimum ran for 90 minutes and the last 30 minutes lost its way. The same jokes about drinking Listerine or selling Grace’s desk were repeated multiple times, and the central premise of living on minimum wage fell by the wayside and never had a proper resolution.  Then the plot just took a totally wacky turn that changed the tone of the play. We concluded that this was almost a very good comedy that went on too long and could not come up with a satisfying ending.

On our next Fringe day, we watched two plays back-to-back at Soulpepper in the Distillery District. We almost missed watching an original new Canadian musical called Camp! since we had purchased a 10-pack of tickets and this show did not make our initial short list of five shows. However, I had a good feeling about this musical so we bought two extra tickets. Good thing we did, because this turned out to be our favourite show of the festival.

Camp! is set in Camp Clover, where kids to stay each summer and participate in activities including canoeing, crafts, sing-a-longs, trivia, talent contests, sports, and the season ending capture the flag competition. Nova and August first came to the camp when they were nine and became BFFs as soon as they met, progressing to become camp councillors. But something has happened and when they arrive this summer, they are cold and even aggressive towards each other. The other campers including junior councillors-in-training Max and Grace, August’s little brother Leo, Nova’s little sister Frances, and fellow campers Vinny and Moira spend most of the show trying to figure out what caused the rift and how to get Nova and August to reconcile.

Camp! is a co-production between Mixtapes Projects, an indie theatre company run by Margo Greve and Ben Kopp who wrote the songs and book for the show, and Bravo Academy, a Toronto performing arts school that offers music/musical theatre training. The amazing cast of the musical are all teens with excellent acting and singing skills and since they were all equipped with headset microphones, there was no trouble hearing them (which has become a major factor in our rating the shows we watch at this Fringe Festival).  The songs were fun, even innovative and advanced the story, the kids were witty and charming and this was by far the most professional production that we had seen at the festival.

The second play that we watched at Soulpepper was in the tiny RBC Financials Studio space which seats only 50 people. The chairs in the front row sit on the floor inches away from the action on the stage. The three subsequent rows follow in stadium style but on a very slight rake. I could not see at all from our original seats in the third row so I grabbed the last seat in the front row while Rich stayed back. Wanting to keep our shows light and happy, we stuck to the comedy and musical genres when selecting which shows to watch. We chose Gratitude since it was in the Comedy section, albeit described as a “dark comedy of teenage angst, insecurities and foibles in a coming-of-age story”.  By the end of this show, Rich and I concurred that what we watched in this 60-minutes play was definitely dark, not the least bit funny and more than a little bit troubling.

Set almost entirely in the boys’ locker room of a private school in Montreal, 15-year-old Dariya’s crush on Drew, the most popular boy in class, starts off relatively innocently with her passing cheat notes for an upcoming test. But soon the interactions escalate into transactional acts of sexual manipulation, seduction, and exploitation involving the two of them as well as fellow students Josh and Ben, where the concept of “gratitude” takes on salacious meanings. Playing almost like a tense psychological thriller with slight comparisons to the movie Dangerous Liaisons, we were taken aback by the explicitness of the dialogue and the simulated sexual acts that were portrayed (some literally at my feet).

Despite this play being not at all what we expected, we found the story to be fascinating and the acting of the entire cast to be superb. Particularly complex is Dariya’s character arc as you come to understand the motivations for her actions once more of her backstory comes to light. The plot is well structured with foreshadowing at the beginning and a plot point that we recognized as a “Chekov’s gun” moment both paying off by the shocking end of the play. The minimal set also cleverly conveyed graffiti on the boys’ locker room with a set of three cloth curtains with lewd graffiti scribbled on they. Despite leaving the theatre a bit shell-shocked, Gratitude spurred lengthy discussions afterwards as we dissected what we just watched.

Our last show of this Fringe Festival was the musical comedy Unsung; Accidental Villains in History. A troupe of six actors reimagine seven important moments in history. Through the use of humorous songs, choreography, costumes and props, they tell each story of how a fictitious character inadvertently caused the momentous event to happen, becoming the accidental villain in that story. The concept was fun and irreverent with some stories working better than others.

One of the best skits involved teenaged Lottie, who was hired to create lifeboats for the Titanic but not given enough time to complete the job. This resulted in not enough lifeboats being available for all the people when the ship hit the iceberg. She is put on trial with a prosecutor and defense lawyer arguing against and for her and then she finally gets to plead her own case.  She points out that the job was too big for one person but it should not have mattered since the ship was supposed to be “unsinkable”. The song ended with a cheeky reference to Rose and Jack from the Titanic movie.  Two supporting characters came out in ridiculous wigs as Lottie declares that more people could have been saved if they had just allowed more than one person on the floating door.

Other skits used hilarious props such as a cardboard representation of the wooden Trojan Horse horse that Trojan guard Calvin allowed through the gates because he loved horses. The horse had two holes cut out around its belly where the “Greeks” smirkingly hid. Mrs. O’Leary’s cow was unfairly blamed for starting the Great Fire of Chicago when it was actually Elliot O’Leary having a tryst with Suzanne when they knocked over a lantern.  The expression on the face of the actor on all fours dressed in a cow suit was priceless and the only thing missing was the cow breaking out into song. The cleverest and most effective staging was used for a skit involving two students who tricked their hated teacher into going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. This feat was illustrated using a long blue sheet representing the Falls over which a tiny figure in a barrel was lowered by a string.

The stories that worked less well included Steven who caused the stock market crash of 1929 leading to the Great Depression, Guy whose “Guy-otine” which he invented to chop watermelons was seized by the leaders of the French Revolution, and Josie, who was not given credit for being part of the moon landing and gets revenge by spreading conspiracy rumours that it was faked. If you are in the mood for silliness, this show was for you.

All in all, we enjoyed our all of our Fringe shows to some degree and did not encounter more sound issues after the first two performances. In fact, in this last show, there was actually a “loud noises” warning and offer of earplugs which we found perplexing. Other than one skit where one of the actors yelled very loudly (for no particular reason that we could discern??), the show was quite audible.

Theatre 2026: The Outsiders @ Princess of Wales Theatre

The Outsiders is a powerful coming-of-age novel written by Susan Hinton in 1967 when she was just sixteen. Set in her hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the story is inspired by her personal observations of close friends who were in a gang and specifically by an incident where a friend was beat up just for being from the wrong side of the tracks.

The novel details the conflicts of two rival gangs, divided by their socioeconomic statuses as working-class, low-income “Greasers” versus upper-middle class “Socs” (short for Socialites). It is told as a first-person narrative from the main protagonist, a sensitive, intelligent, and bookish 14-year-old boy named Ponyboy (Michael) Curtis who finds beauty in sunsets and escapism in books and movies. Recently orphaned when their parents were killed in a car accident, Ponyboy and his 16-year-old brother Sodapop (Patrick) are being raised by their oldest brother Darryl who had to quit school to support the family. They are members of the Greasers, which include Ponyboy’s best friend Johnny Cade, a shy boy who comes from an abusive home, and Dallas (Dally) Winston, the oldest, toughest and most disillusioned member of the gang who has a criminal background but is fiercely loyal to those that he is closest to.

At the movies one night, Ponyboy establishes an unexpected connection with Sherrie (Cherry) Valance, the girlfriend of Bob, leader of the Socs. This eventually leads to a violent confrontation that results in tragedy and drives the rest of the plot. To save Ponyboy from being drowned by the Socs, Johnny stabs and kills Bob in self-defence. Dallas gives the frightened kids money and helps them escape to an abandoned church in the countryside. While in hiding, the boys discuss the meaning of a Robert Frost poem titled “Nothing Gold Can Stay” that describes the innocence of youth that is transient. After a few days, Dallas comes to them with a plan to drive them to the next state but they decide instead to return home and turn themselves in. As they leave the church, it catches on fire, possibly from a lit cigarette that Ponyboy tossed away. Children on a field trip are caught in the fire and Ponyboy rushes back in to save them with Johnny hot on his heels. While they are able to rescue the kids and are hailed as heroes, Johnny Cade is seriously injured when a burning beam falls on him. To settle their differences over Bob’s death and Johnny’s condition as well as establish the dominant gang, the Greasers and Socs hold a “winner-takes-all” rumble which the Greasers win. When Johnny succumbs to his injuries, Dallas is overwrought with grief and commits “suicide by cop”. From his deathbed, Johnny encourages Ponyboy to “stay gold”.

The book explores class wars, identity and belonging, family and friendship, loyalty, and not becoming jaded (i.e. “staying gold”) despite life’s inequities and unfairness. This modern-day classic has sold over 15-million copies and has been translated into 30 languages, emphasizing the universality of the theme of feeling like an “outsider”.

A 1983 film adaptation of The Outsiders directed by Francis Ford Coppola included a stellar cast of young actors, many of whom went on to become big stars. This included Patrick Swazye as Darryl, Rob Lowe as Sodapop, Ralph Macchio (pre–Karate Kid) as Johnny Cade, Emilio Estevez and Tom Cruise as other Greasers, and Diane Lane as Cherry Valance. Matt Dillon and Leif Garrett, who were already famous, played Dallas and Bob respectively. Ironically, the lead role of Ponyboy was played by C.Thomas Howell who, despite a healthy film and TV career, is arguably the least known of the cast today. The gritty movie follows the main plot points of the book quite faithfully while cutting out details on the Curtis family’s backstory and dynamics. The film also plays up the fight and death scenes for dramatic effect, especially the big rumble and Dally’s death.

Coppola agreed to direct the movie after receiving an impassioned letter in 1980 from a librarian in Fresno, California, and her seventh and eighth-grade students, pleading with him to adapt the novel into a film. The book had greatly connected with the students, especially boys who did not typically read much. Hinton had also received letters from fans including ones who told her “how much the book influenced their life choices”.

A musical adaptation of The Outsiders opened on Broadway in 2023 and won Tony awards in 2024 for best new musical, as well as best direction, lighting design and sound design in a musical. We just watched a touring production of this show and can attest that these awards were well-deserved, especially the technical ones. The show starts with Ponyboy sitting alone on the edge of the stage writing into his notebook. He quotes the opening lines of the novel, which also happens to be the closing lines of the novel: “When I stepped into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home”.

This leads to the opening number,” Tulsa 67”, with lyrics that introduce the characters and describe the backstories of the Curtis family, the Greasers, the Socs, and life in Tulsa in 1967 for the haves and the have-nots. A reprise of this song at the end of the show acts as a bookend for the musical. It recaps Ponyboy’s character growth through his traumatic experiences as he finally understands how much his brothers love and need him. Darryl has a couple of emotional songs (“Runs in the Family” with reprise, “Throwing in the Towel”) that highlight his frustrations with trying to keep his brothers in line and his regrets for the life he gave up in order to keep the family together after his parents died. Sodapop gets his moment in the song “Soda’s Letter” where he pleads for Ponyboy to come home.

I thought the songs do well to service the story, although there is not much nuance or sophistication to either the lyrics or the melodies. But what makes the show special is its stagecraft and the innovative use of lighting and sound effects. As Dallas helps Ponyboy and Johnny escape on a train while singing the jazzy song “Run, Run Brother”, that train is simulated through the use of some planks and rolling car tires with lighting and sound effects bringing the train to life. Unlike the source material, a train is also the vehicle by which Dallas commits suicide while singing “Little Brother” to convey his angst and despair about Johnny’s death. The best use of lighting and sound effects is in the choreography and staging of the climatic final fight between the two gangs. The rumble scene happens in darkness and pouring rain (requiring 180 gallons of recycled water per performance) with a pulsating soundtrack that includes sounds of thunder and the rumbling and horns of passing trains. The fight scene comes across as a violent and visceral dance. The simulated punches and kicks are accentuated with loud, gut-wrenching smacking sounds and flashes of light, as the heads of the actors jolt back and their bodies flail outwards in reaction to each attack. We first experienced this during the 2024 Tony Awards where the cast performed the scene and have been excited to watch this show ever since.

There is also effective use of video throughout the musical, such as the screenings of movies in the background as Ponyboy is speaking about or actually watching a movie, including clips of films featuring his idol, Paul Newman. Video backgrounds are also used effectively to reflect the glow of the sunsets that Ponyboy and Cherry bond over, and the glowing fire raging through the church.  At the end of the show during the bows, the orchestra appears as videos above the actors and then remained in view after they left.

Whether intentionally or not, The Outsiders seems be influenced by, or at least reminds me of, iconic musicals of the past. When Ponyboy survives an initial beating by the Socs and is initiated into the Greasers in the song “Grease got a Hold”, the setting and choreography around an old car in a garage brings to mind “Grease is the Word” from the musical Grease. Dally’s defiant final moments before being struck by a train reminded me of Javert’s suicide in Les Miserables.

The most obvious comparisons must be with West Side Story since they both deal with rival gangs, although the reasons for the rivalries differ. Deviating from the novel or the movie, the Outsiders musical introduced a female Greaser named Ace, reminiscent of the character of Anybodys in West Side Story. Ace does not have much of a speaking role and seems to be there just to fill out the dance numbers. The location and dance sequence of the Friday night drive-in scene in the Outsiders, where the two gangs congregate, seems like a callback to the “Dance at the Gym” in West Side Story. Cherry’s song “Hopeless War” pleading with Ponyboy not to fight in the rumble parallels with Maria asking Tony to stop the fight in West Side Story.

I thought the Outsiders musical did an admirable job of reflecting the novel, including allocating songs that allow characters like Darryl, Sodapop, Johnny, Dallas and Cherry to express their inner thoughts and emotions. I did think that in following the narrative of the novel, everything that followed the pivotal rumble felt a bit anticlimactic. I also felt that the orchestration was a bit too loud for some of the songs, drowning out the lyrics a bit. But overall, I enjoyed this musical very much and thought that it deserved its Best Musical Tony Award.

Theatre 2026: Shaw Festival - One for the Pot, Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, Sleuth

This year at the Shaw Festival in Niagara on the Lake, we watched three thoroughly enjoyable British plays in two days—a farce, a screwball comedy of manners and a psychological thriller.

Our first show was a matinee performance of the British farce “One for the Pot” written in 1959 by Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton and first performed in West-End London in 1961. The setting is the country manor of wealthy mill owner Jonathan Hardcastle, who wishes to bestow a gift of £10,000 to the son of his deceased partner, but only if that son is the sole living heir.  Hardcastle advertises in the paper in search of the heir and Billy Hickory-Wood, a simple-minded, lower-classed house painter, arrives to claim the inheritance, accompanied by his scheming companion Charlie. Troubles arise when more Hickory-Wood identical brothers (previously unknown to one another) also arrive in answer to the advertisement. Rupert Hickory-Wood is a posh upper-class gentleman while Michael Hickory-Wood is an Irish con-man and pickpocket. Hilarity ensues as Charlie and Hardcastle’s greedy butler Jugg desperately try to conceal the fact that there are multiple Hickory-Woods. This leads to mistaken identities and many rapid entrances and exits through various doors and egresses leading to the study, a hidden walk-in liquor cabinet, the garden, the ballroom, the upstairs bedrooms, and even a large chest with a fold-down lid. While all the Hickory-Wood brothers are played by the same actor, body doubles and sleight-of-hand staging make it appear as if several of them are on stage at the same time.

We were especially excited to watch this play since we greatly admired the director Chris Abraham and lead actor Peter Fernandes (playing all the Hickory-Woods) from their work at Crow’s Theatre. Unfortunately, because we attended the afternoon matinee, Hickory-Wood was played by understudy Sepehr Reybod instead of Fernandes. Despite our initial disappointment, this romp was still so much fun to watch. The timing and physicality of the entries and exits were impeccable as one Hickory-Wood left (or was shoved) through one doorway and another one appeared within seconds through another. After a while, you forget that the brothers are all played by the same actor although their characters are always easily distinguishable through their accents, vocabulary, demeanor and to a lessor extent, wardrobe.

We watched our next show that same evening. This time, it was the 2013 play “Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense” by playwrights Robert and David Goodale. The brothers took elements of the plot from the beloved 1938 P.G. Wodehouse novel “Code of the Woosters” and turned it into a play within a play. Bertie Wooster had a madcap weekend as described in that book and was convinced by his friends to reenact the events as a one-man stage play.  He explains this to the audience while breaking the proverbial fourth wall. After a few humorous minutes of trying to play the roles of both himself and his butler Jeeves (“then he said., and then I said..”), Bertie enlists Jeeves as well as his Aunt Dahlia’s butler Seppings to portray the other roles in the story.

Jeeves helpfully pushes out moveable sets and props to create the proper setting for each scene. With this background established, the three are now ready to enact the convoluted tale which involves a silver cow creamer, a lost notebook, a stolen policeman’s helmet, and the romantic relationships of Gussie Fink-Nottle and Madeline Bassett, as well as Stephanie (Stiffy) Bing and Harold Pinker. Bertie gets entangled in trying to resolve multiple conflicting pressures while fending off the aggressions from his nemesis, the retired magistrate Sir Watkyn Bassett (Madeline’s father) and Basett’s henchman Rodney Spode. In the end, as always, it is Jeeves to the rescue, coming up with the solution to all of Bertie’s problems.

What makes “J&W in Perfect Nonsense” unique from a typical Jeeves & Wooster production is the gimmick of Jeeves and Seppings playing multiple roles and the amazingly quick costume changes that they make when alternating between characters. In addition to himself, Jeeves portrays Sir Watkyn Bassett, his daughter Madeline, Gussie Fink-Nottle and Stiffy Bing while Seppings takes on the roles of Aunt Dahlia, the antique shop keeper, Sir Watkyn’s butler Butterfield, police officer Constable Oates, and the malvolent Roderick Spode. In a talkback, the actors talk about having up to 5 dressers backstage ready to help them switch costumes, with some changes taking mere seconds. One particularly impressive and recurring costume change involves the Spode character leaping into a contraption that elevates him by several feet to create an imposing figure in a trenchcoat. Actor Travis Seetoo, who plays Seppings playing Spode, spoke of how dangerous that device was and how he had injured himself multiple times. At one point in the second act, Jeeves comes on stage with the right side of his body dressed as Sir Watkyn and the left side as Madelaine as “they” carry on a conversation with each other. This is the second show that we have watched where this technique was used.

The next day, we watched our final show, the mystery-thriller Sleuth, written by Anthony Shaffer in 1970. While the play had been a great success in both London’s West End and on Broadway, wining the Tony award for Best Play, it is perhaps even more widely known for the 1972 film adaptation starring Lawrence Olivier and Michael Caine. Sleuth involves a psychological battle of wits and clash of class between the older, wealthy, upper-class mystery writer Andrew Wyle and Milo Tindle, the younger, less privileged immigrant that Andrew’s wife has taken as her lover. What starts out as a seemingly cordial meeting turns into a cat and mouse game with multiple twists and turns, and potentially dire consequences. In addition to being a fascinating play with excellent performances by the two leads, this particular production coincidentally was the directorial debut for Peter Fernandes who we missed seeing in One for the Pot, and the actor playing Milo was once again Sepehr Reybod, showing his range in an entirely different role in a totally different genre of play compared to the farce that we watched him in the day before.

Both Jeeves & Wooster and Sleuth were mounted at the Court House Theatre, a retired space forced back into use by the renovation (a.k.a. demolition and rebuilding) of the Royal George Theatre. While the set for Jeeves was relatively simple, as a reflection of the play within a play, the set for Sleuth was more elaborate. This made it all the more impressive to know that the two shows run back-to-back on consecutive days meaning the sets switch daily and sometimes even within hours between the afternoon and evening shows.

Despite the varying genres of each of the plays that we watched, from fast-paced farce to comedy of manners to tense psychological drama, they all had something in common. The theme of class distinction acts as an underlying thread that runs through all three shows. In One for the Pot, the contrast between dull-witted lower-class Billy vs. refined upper-class Rupert is apparent, as is Charlie’s fear that Billy will be looked down upon or even rejected because of his lowly status and menial job. In Jeeves & Wooster, although Jeeves is clearly the brains of the pair, Wooster still makes a point of reminding Jeeves who is the boss (or at least who he thinks is the boss). Typical of comedies of manners, the Jeeves & Wooster stories satirize and make fun of social behaviours and hypocrisies of the upper classes while providing the servants like Jeeves the gift of wit and verbal irony.  The dialogue and action within Perfect Nonsense’s outer play accentuates these concepts. Even Sleuth highlights the class differences between Andrew and Milo, causing Andrew to look down upon and underestimate Milo for being poor and an immigrant.

All three of these plays were a blast to watch and made for a great mini 3-day road trip to Niagara on the Lake.

Theatre 2026: Punch - A New Musical @ Factory Theatre

We have been following musical composer and performer Andrew Seok on Instagram since we watched and thoroughly enjoyed his show “Almost Ever After” at last year’s Toronto Fringe Festival. That show was presented “in concert” with performers singing in front of microphones and featured five interconnecting love stories inspired by movies such as Love Actually.  His latest endeavour, titled “Punch: A New Musical”, is presented in the same way but differs wildly in theme and tone.

The plot is plucked from a heartwarming real-life situation where a baby macaque monkey in a Japanese zoo was abandoned by his mother shortly after his birth in July 2025.  Given the name “Punch” by a pair of zookeepers who raised and bottle-fed him for six months, the baby macaque struggled when he was finally returned to Monkey Mountain to reintegrate with the other macaque monkeys. The other monkeys bullied and ostracized Punch, leaving him feeling alone and isolated. To provide him with some comfort and companionship, zoo officials gave Punch an orange orangutan plushie from IKEA, which he immediately took to and considered his surrogate mother. The story went viral with videos of Punch dragging around and cuddling this stuffed animal, which the public soon dubbed “Oran-Mama”. Eventually, Punch learned to socialize and was accepted by the other monkeys. Today he is thriving and relies on the stuffed animal much less than before.

Andrew Seok learned of this story through his girlfriend and was inspired to write a musical about this tale. At the start of the show, baby Punch is represented by a tiny plush monkey so that it could be cradled by its mother as she sings about not knowing how to care for her child, asking why others make it seem so easy, and then by the zookeepers as they debate what to name and how to help Punch. By the time Punch is ready to be integrated with the other monkeys, he is now portrayed by actress Lara Angela Roda, whose big, expressive eyes convey Punch’s confusion over the absence of his mother, and fear when attacked by the other monkeys. They also beam with joy and spunk, especially when interacting with the zookeeper that he thinks of as “Dad”, and once he meets a new friend in the monkey Momo, played by Belinda Corpuz who we previously saw at Soulpepper in “Narnia”. Momo befriends Punch and teaches him the ways of the macaque in terms of showing deference to the elders, grooming, and other appropriate behaviours. Akira, the leader of the monkeys and main aggressor against Punch is played by Seok himself. In the talkback, he indicated that he casts himself in his own musicals when he relates to a role and can’t find another actor who will portray it in the way that he imagines. Renowned Canadian actress and Broadway star Chilina Kennedy plays the narrator who fills in the backstory of Punch and sets up the scenes.

Particularly fitting for a concert-style musical but probably even for a fully produced show, the “costumes” of the actors playing the monkeys merely hint at their animalistic nature through the use of muted brown, beige and grey tones and the textures of the tops or sweaters being worn. Punch is dressed in an oversized grey hoodie to accentuate his relative petiteness while Akira wears a brown jacket with a fur-lined hood which makes him stand out and clearly marks him as the alpha monkey. Seok’s height which towers over the other actors helps as well. This worked out well because dressing in actual monkey suits would have changed the tone of this touching tale. This was the same sartorial choice used in the play Fifteen Dogs when depicting the various breeds of dog. By contrast, the human zookeepers are dressed in matching blue, short-sleeved, collared shirts while the narrator wears a red skirt.  These choices clearly delineate them from the monkeys.

The only other prop on stage is of course the Ikea Monkey that Punch calls “Orange Mama”. The choreography is limited but quite effective. In combat scenes where Punch is attacked, the other monkeys stand in formation and each raises an arm and forms a menacing claw with his hand. When they swipe downwards at Punch and later Momo, all synchronized by sound effects from the orchestra, the victims jerk and wince as if struck although no contact is actually made.

Once again, we were impressed by a work produced by Andrew Seok, especially when we heard during the talkback that he wrote all the songs in less than a month. Even more impressive was how short the rehearsal time was for the actors to learn their parts.  Seok is a very talented composer/lyricist and hopefully one day, he can stage a full production of his works including sets, costumes and choreography. I also wish that his shows could be held in a theatre with better sound system. Inside Factory Theatre’s Main Stage, the voices of the performers and the lyrics they were singing were often muddy and difficult to discern.

I had read in the advertisements for Punch: A New Musical that there was an “opening act” before each performance.  Arriving early to watch this, we were treated to a mini-concert by actor-musician James Daly, apparently a regular in Andrew Seok’s shows. We first encountered Daly as one of the pairs of lovers in Almost Ever After where he also played the trombone when his storyline was not being featured. In this musical, he is part of the small orchestra positioned at the back of the stage, as opposed to being in the cast. For the pre-show concert, he sang a series of torch songs that he wrote, and through banter with the audience, we learned that they were all about ex-girlfriends who broke his heart. Daly was charming and witty and his songs were both funny and touching.  This was a lovely way to settle in before the main attraction.

Theatre 2026: Primary Trust @ Crow's Theatre

Primary Trust, the last show of Crow’s Theatre’s 2025/26 season, is a touching tale of a lonely, socially awkward 38-year-old man named Kenneth, who deals with the childhood trauma of being orphaned at a young age after the death of his mother by forming a consistent routine which he has stuck to for over two decades. This involves working at an old bookstore, followed by Happy Hour Mai Tai cocktails and snacks at his favourite joint “Wally’s”, which is the last tiki bar in a fictional small-town just outside of Rochester, New York. We watch him follow his regime, signaled by a loud “ding” (like the sound made by a call bell) to mark the repetition of each day. He has a second coping method that takes a few scenes to become apparent, although the clues are there from the start.

Kenneth’s structured life is turned upside down when the owner of the bookstore decides to sell and move to Arizona for health reasons. Suddenly unemployed and cast adrift, Kenneth’s turmoil is punctuated by more frequent dings. Forced out of his comfort zone, he slowly learns to reintegrate with the real world, landing a job as a teller in the bank “Primary Trust”, the competitor to the bank that his mother used to work at, and even more slowly learning how to form friendships. It makes me wonder if “Primary Trust” has additional meaning than just the name of the bank but rather reflects Kenneth’s journey to learn to trust new people outside of his limited world.

The play is powered by the star performance by actor Durae McFarlane, who we first encountered in Crow Theatre’s 2019 production of Annie Baker’s play “The Flick”.  As Kenneth, McFarlane’s smile lights up the entire stage when he is happy and contorts in agony when he is distressed.  What makes this play special is the way that it eschews typical tropes including the stereotypical jock-bully or a forced romance. Instead, we get a quiet, heartfelt depiction of one man’s introspection as he searches for connection and belonging.

This has been the first show that we watched in a while at one of Crow’s Theatre’s flexibly configurable spaces where the stage was set up with stadium seating. While this is typical for most other theatres, it felt almost jarring at Crow’s where a thrust (3-sided) or in-the-round seating has become more of the norm.  The main set pieces include the run-down looking building representing the old bookstore, the structure with a lit-up neon sign and fringe curtain in the entrance that becomes Wally’s Tiki Bar, and a third building tucked behind that only revealed the letters “UST” from our seats which turned out to be the Primary Trust bank. Seating for the tiki bar and a teller’s counter were also pushed onto and off the stage as the scenes changed. But what caught my eye was a stoplight mounted high up on the right side of the stage. The light went from green to yellow to red as the show was about to start, possibly acting as a visual cue to the audience to take their seats.  Then throughout the show, the lights rotated between green, red and off.  It is possible that this was just used as lighting for the stage, but I became fixated on wondering if there was more meaning to the colours being used.  I was probably just overthinking things and after a while, I became so engrossed in the story that I stopped noticing.

I am finding that so many of the plays being mounted these days are emotionally taxing dramas dealing with trauma, grief, mental illness, and bleak or even horrific existences. This is reflected in the audience advisory section in the programme for each play that we watch.  The list seems to get longer and longer.  While by no means a comedy, the advisory for this play is relatively mild (mature language and themes, descriptions of childhood trauma, simulated smoking and heavy alcohol consumption). You find yourself rooting for this character, empathizing in his despair and cheering for his successes. From that respect, I thoroughly enjoyed this play but I still long for a straight-out comedy to help transport me from the depressing global state of our world today.

For each play, the lobby bar at Crow’s Theatre comes up with one or more “signature drinks” that reflect on the theme or content of show.  For Primary Trust, that drink was integral to the plot, and so, the Mai Thai was on sale. Rich ordered one and said it was a good one!

Theatre 2026: The Division @ Crow's Theatre

I went to watch the play The Division at Crow’s Theatre with no prior knowledge of what the play was about, other than making assumptions based on its title. I thought it might be related to a situation similar to the Partition of India in 1947, or perhaps a more personal melodrama based the breakup of a family unit. It did not occur to me that the “Division” in question would refer to a military unit.

Written by second generation Canadian-Ukrainian playwright Andrew Kushnir, the development of the play stems from the fallout of an article that he had published in the “Lives Lived” column of the Globe and Mail newspaper.  The long-standing obituary-like column accepts short, intimate personal essays that celebrate the “unheralded lives” of recently deceased Canadians. In 2019, Kushnir submitted a piece in honour of his grandfather Peter Kushnir, who passed away in Montreal at age 91 in late 2018. Within his tribute, Andrew described his grandfather or “dyido” as “Ukrainian patriot, Watchmaker, CPR clock man”. Andrew went on to detail his grandfather’s time spent in World War II as part of the “1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army”, fighting on behalf of the Germans against Ukraine’s sworn enemy, the Russians. Peter was captured during the war and spent time in an Italian prisoner-of-war camp until he and two others escaped. He immigrated to Ontario in 1947 and became a skilled watchmaker, leaving his grandson Andrew a pocket watch upon his death.

I found this 2019 article behind the Globe and Mail paywall and read it along with the comments posted by other readers. The well-written article led to several comments praising Andrew’s writing style. But then came a shocking comment from a reader who made note that the 1st Division of the Ukrainian National Army was better known as the “German 14 Waffen Division SS Galizen” with members of this unit being responsible for one of the “worst atrocities committed against Jews and Poles during WWII”. The commenter went on to reference the book “Hitler’s Foreign Executioners: Europe’s Dirty Secret” by Christopher Hale. 

Andrew Kushnir knew his grandfather as a contradictory man who was both strict and foreboding as well as gregarious and full of stories. But being a part of the “Waffen-SS” was not a story that Peter Kushnir ever told. Learning of this led Andrew on a mission to find out more about his grandfather’s past. He traveled to Peter’s hometown in Ukraine to retrace his grandfather’s steps from his youth, through the war, until his migration to Canada. Andrew traveled from town to town, interviewing anyone who might have known his dyido or was around during the same time periods.

The play The Division reenacts Andrew’s quest with actor Daniel Maslany (younger brother of Tatiana Maslany from Orphan Black fame) playing the role of the playwright. Four other actors (two male, two female) literally act as the Greek Chorus at the start of the play, echoing his words, before transforming into the myriads of people that Andew met during his investigations.  To illustrate what a personal tale this will be, the play begins with Daniel playing a tape recording of what presumably is Andrew Kushnir’s voice informing the audience that the actor holding the tape recorder will be a stand-in for him. As a framing device for conveying the tale, Andrew is documenting his odyssey by writing letters to be read in the future by his young nephew Lev, once Lev reaches adulthood and is old enough to understand. The goal seems to be to end the cycle of silence and secrecy by passing on his grandfather’s past and legacy to the next generation.

At the centre of the thrust stage is a table full of clocks and clockmaking tools to highlight Peter’s profession as a watchmaker. Throughout his journey, Andrew carries a vintage, exquisitely crafted pocket-watch that his grandfather made, encouraging people he meets to hold and examine the timepiece. It feels like Andrew wants people to see the part of the grandfather that he knew, as a buffer against new details that he might be about to learn. The watch feels like a metaphor for the grandfather, as they are both complex with many intricate parts. A gap in the front row of the audience (coincidentally right in front of my seat) was left for a folding chair that allowed Andrew to occasionally sit in, as if joining the audience in watching the scene unfolding in front of him.

The conceit and backstory of this autobiographic tale is fascinating but somehow the play didn’t work for me.  There were so many disparate characters with thick accents that were difficult to understand and so many jumps in locations and dates that it made it hard to follow where Andrew was, who he was talking to, and in some cases, why he was talking to them and how those conversations added any useful context to the story. It felt more like a brain dump of his travels rather than a cohesive tale. A screen at the back of the stage with very faint letters briefly tried to highlight the date and location (e.g. 2019 Krakow) but more often than not, my view of that was obscured either by an actor or a stagehand who was setting up props for the next scene.

There were some interesting discussions about whether the young men from conquered foreign countries were forced into the German army, or in Ukraine’s case, did they go willingly in order to gain access to arms for fighting the Russians? There was some debate about whether it is an appropriate time to put on a play like “The Division”, when Ukraine is desperately battling for its sovereignty and does not need to be painted in a bad light. There was also a scene depicting the political debacle in Canada during the Trudeau administration when a Canadian-Ukrainian “war hero” was given a standing ovation in parliament before it was revealed that he fought for the Nazi Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, providing parallels to Peter Kushnir’s role in the war. What was unequivocal was the playwright’s stance on the Russian-Ukrainaian war.  Graphic denouncements of the unjust and cruel Russian aggression and the atrocities committed included the actors literally spitting onto the stage in disgust.

Although it was only 95 minutes long, the show seemed to drag for me. It was ironic that in a play that so prominently featured watches, I ended up looking at my watch multiple times to see how much longer it would be before the end. The basis for a good story was there but perhaps it needed to be presented in a different way. I was surprised to learn that my husband felt the same way. As a history major and lover/collector of watches, if anyone was going to appreciate this play, it was him.