Caroline Bell and Sharleen Kalayil. Photo by Jamie Kronick.
Ship’s Company theatre kicked off their 40th Season on July 3rd with a swinging party aboard the deck of the Kipawo, and the opening night of Katerina Bakolias’ summer farce ’Til Death Do Us Part directed by Samantha Wilson.
In 1982 the Kipawo Heritage Society worked to return a former steel vessel owned by the Dominion Railway, turned naval ship during World War II, turned Minas Basin ferryboat, to Parrsboro from Newfoundland. They hoped to restore the ship to her former glory and turn her into a floating arts and cultural centre. Instead, since 1984, she has been a permanent fixture on the shores of Parrsboro, with her own theatre, which has grown up around her. The first play at Ship’s Company was You’ll Be in Her Arms by Midnight & Other Parrsboro Stories written by the theatre company’s co-founders Michael Fuller and Mary Vingoe. The theatre is now stewarded in part by Artistic Director Laura Vingoe-Cram, Mary’s daughter.
Ship’s Company Theatre has a long and proud history of producing Atlantic Canadian plays, like ’Til Death Do Us Part, and it is a theatre that is very much rooted in and integral to its community.
’Til Death Do Us Part tells the story of Kira and Ryan, a couple about to be married at an obscure rural hotel, who wake up two mornings before their big day and discover there is a dead man in their bed. Many silly antics follow as Kira and Ryan attempt to obscure the fact that this man was in their room at all, and also, obviously, that he died there, so their wedding ceremony can go ahead as planned. Unfortunately, they are under the constant watchful eye of Kira’s overbearing mother, Heather, and the hotel’s zealous staff member, Mel, who is so excited to be part of the hotel’s very first wedding.
Caroline Bell and Olivier Blais play Kira and Ryan, Bell in a more nuanced performance as she oscillates between the comedy and the drama of her character’s arc, and Blais, absolutely throwing himself into every joke as Ryan, the most flamboyantly comedic character in the piece. Leah Pritchard finds a great balance between creating some quirkiness for Mel, while still ultimately being the more tempered-down straightperson for Blais’ Ryan to bounce off of. Sharleen Kalayil is an absolute fortress of icy authoritarianism as Kira’s mother, which works beautifully both for Kira’s more dramatic scenes, as well as Ryan’s comedy. The star of the show is James MacLean, as dead Peter, in a role where they are dragged, rolled, carried, crammed into closets and under beds, and otherwise treated like an inanimate object, and who remains inanimate regardless of how their body is moved about the set by others.
The conceit of the play and the characters is really funny, and the overall storyline of a couple dealing with this strange catastrophe surrounding the man in their bed, while also struggling with their own secrets and doubts about their relationship very nearly on the eve of their wedding is great. There’s room for Bakolias to continue working on tightening up the dialogue to keep a consistently crisp and frenetic pace that more closely mirrors the farcical pacing of the movements of the actors around the space. I also wondered if rather than Ryan entering the hotel in the first scene already in a full-blown panic about the raccoons, if it might give Blais more room to play if we see Ryan initially as quirky like Mel, but then we watch him devolve into complete chaos as the play goes on. This also would give Bakolias more opportunity to show the audience what Kira and Ryan’s normal vibe is, so we get a better sense of who they usually are as a couple, see the ways in which the relationship is strong and what has brought them to the brink of their wedding day, and ensures that the audience really cares about this relationship ultimately surviving this comedy of errors.
I think with some more reworking this play has a lot of potential to become a national summer stock favourite like Mark Crawford’s Bed and Breakfast. I would love to see the play continue to get further developed in the future.
For now though, the play offers strong performances, fun, silly, shenanigans that include cute racoon puppets, and an overall story arc that is interesting, unique, and ultimately entertaining.
‘Til Death Do Us Part plays at Ship’s Company Theatre (18 Main Street, Parrsboro) until July 21st, 2024. Performances are Wednesday to Sunday at 7:30pm with matinees on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 2:00pm. Tickets range in price from $16.02 for children to $35.00 for general seating. Tickets are available here or by calling the Box Office at 1.800.565.SHOW (7469) or visiting in person at 18 Main Street.
Ship’s Company Theatre is wheelchair accessible. Six wheelchair spots are available per performance, and Assistive Listening Devices are available at all performances.
