I started Day 4 of Halifax Fringe with Scott Andrew Christensen’s play The Draft at the Neptune Theatre Imperial Rehearsal Hall.
This play is about two hockey players, Andriy and William, who are both vying to make the NHL Draft. William is local to Halifax and is filled with unbridled rage. Andriy has recently emigrated from present-day Ukraine. They form a contentious relationship that changes both their trajectories in profound ways.
This is Christensen’s first play, but you can tell from his dialogue that he has experience writing in other forms. The play is very literate, and in each scene Christensen transports his audience right into the thick of the action, which is exciting. The play could benefit from a little more clarifying context for those who are less familiar with the world of hockey. I wanted to know what the stakes were for Andriy if he told his hockey Captain off and refused to engage with him. William treats Andriy horribly from the moment he arrives; I couldn’t see any reason why Andriy would put up with a fraction of the prejudice and petty meanness that William doles out at him. Why not just leave and make another friend? Christensen is very clearly showing that William is in trouble, but I think he would benefit from rooting him a bit more in behaviour that a real eighteen year old might logically get away with from his peers, on the ice, and with the adults in his life. I found Andriy as “the coward,” a hockey player coming from a war zone, difficult to believe. I think watching the two boys meet more as equals in their strength, but constantly butting heads and being contentious with one another, and then having Andriy slowly figure out William’s secret and deciding that he will go out on a limb and try to help him might make the the emotional pacing feel more grounded.
So much of the realism in Andriy Schevchenko’s performance is rooted in the fact that he is really Ukrainian and he is able to give fictional Andriy an accurate accent. I also believed from their physicality that both he and Ian Bueltel’s William were hockey players. Bueltel is throwing every ounce of his passion, energy and his shoulder into William. I was concerned that with the adrenaline he was actually injuring himself.
I think this play shows a lot of potential, and I think these two actors are well cast in these roles. With some tightening up of the emotional pacing and really, really rooting William and Andriy in being eighteen year old boys, I think there is a very powerful story here about an unexpected friendship and the fact that desperate moments of crisis can make for strange bedfellows.
The Draft plays at Neptune Theatre’s Imperial Rehearsal Hall at the following times:
September 3: 9:00pm
September 5: 7:15pm
September 6: 9:00pm
September 7: 3:30pm
September 8: 12:00pm & 6:45pm
Next up was Nancy Edwards’ solo show Rethinking Good Intentions, which is based on her memoir Not One, Not Even One: A Memoir of Life-altering Experiences in Sierra Leone, West Africa and centres on Edwards’ time as a community health nurse volunteering with CUSO in rural villages in Sierra Leone in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The crux of Edwards’ story, as the title suggests, is that when she arrived in Sierra Leone as a young community health nurse, whose first point of contact upon arrival was the Holy Rosary (Catholic) Sisters who were in charge of the clinic at Serabu, she was woefully unprepared for the the realities of life there, and ignorant to the language, traditions, and cultures of the people. She was also initially arrogant enough to assume that her ignorance didn’t matter, that it was her good intentions to help that were the most important. She points out various instances where the white saviours rejected Sierra Leonian expertise and ended up with egg on their faces, and where the local medical workers were the ones who were able to bring about real change and find long-lasting solutions for their communities.
As a storyteller Edwards’ narrative is well written and clear and she paints a vivid picture of the landscapes and the characters that she meets there. She has a gentle and self-deprecating charm. I think the story is strong enough on its own that she could perform it while standing still and focusing more instead on bringing to life some of the voices of the other white people (her parents, the sisters at the convent), and perhaps having a Sierra Leonian person provide voice overs for the dialogue with some of the other characters.
Edwards’ message here is important: you cannot go to a country you don’t know anything about with the mission of saving it from anything- and working in true collaboration with Indigenous communities takes time and trust and deep knowledge, respect and deference to those who know more than you do. I think the message gets a bit muddied when Edwards speaks about how much she wanted to go back to Sierra Leone after she got married and had her child. I wanted to know more about how she envisioned her work there to be different than it had been the first time? How do we know when our good intentions are actively sought out and asked for by the people we want to help? A quick look at Wikipedia tells me that Sierra Leone has a complex history between the time when some Black Loyalists left Nova Scotia for Freetown and the Civil War in 1991. I would have benefited too, when we are talking about systemic poverty, to hear a bit more about the country’s long colonial history. How does that intersect with missionary work and the work of Canadian volunteers? I am curious too about how this has changed since the early 1980s. It’s definitely a thought-provoking and pertinent subject for a play.
Rethinking Good Intentions has closed.
Next I went down to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia for Page 1 Theatre’s Chosen Christmas written and directed by Isaac Mulè.
This play centres on Sam, played by Riley Reign, who doesn’t want to go home for Christmas because they feel like their identity as a Queer person is disparaged by their family members there. Instead they have established their own Christmas tradition where they and their friends (all played by Ella MacDonald) celebrate at Sam’s family cottage instead. As the years go by, however, Sam begins to alienate their friends by clinging to the past, controlling their friends’ behaviour, and being passive aggressive to a fault.
This is a great premise for a play. I really wanted to see what drew all of these people to Sam in the first place, and what made their Christmas a place where everyone had been excited to spend their holidays. The play jumps around in time, but we only ever see Sam judging their friends’ attempts at making the Christmas even somewhat festive, overtly picking fights with them, and being really depressed. Even though having MacDonald play all the friends is a great showcase of her talents, I think Mulè might benefit from having more than just the two characters in a scene together at a time. This way we really could get a sense of what this fun friend group is like having this lovely, jovial first Christmas together that establishes a special bond and tradition, especially for Sam. Then, slowly, we see Sam’s paranoia and controlling behaviour start to shift the dynamic and the more things start to change, the more desperate they are to hold on.
I think it’s really interesting to explore the way a group of young people come in and out of each other’s lives over a period of years and the idea of one friend being left behind.
Chosen Christmas plays at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (1723 Hollis Street, Bedford Row Doors) at the following times:
September 3: 6:00pm
September 7: 4:30pm
September 8: 6:45pm
Kitty’s Bound for Broadway is a musical written by Kerry Miller and produced by Moser River Productions. We meet Kitty, a recently divorced empty nester who finds out that a play she wrote nearly a decade earlier has been submitted for a Bound for Broadway contest, where she has the opportunity to go to New York and compete to have her play produced on Broadway.
Of course this isn’t how Broadway really works, but I do like the idea of imagining what might happen if there were such a contest and if someone as far removed from the American (or Canadian) theatre community as Kitty really did submit her first play this way and got short-listed. I like too that Kitty is a playwright; I feel like stories like these are much more commonly written about those hoping to be acting stars.
I think Miller might benefit from finding ways to ground the fanciful conceit in ways that feel a little more realistic. For example, we see Kitty awkward and alone at a Opening Night Gala meet and greet for the contestants and the soundscape alludes to everyone around her mingling and chatting, but what if all the other contestants were just as awkward and alone as she is? How might some of them interact with one another? What if they were all just as inexperienced as she is (for the same reason that you would never see Beyoncé competing on American Idol)? Why might the producers have the playwrights pitching their shows rather than just reading the plays and jurying them? Maybe the contest is also being televised? That would give Miller some more leeway to make these elements more theatrical while still grounding the story in something that feels a little more plausible, which raises the stakes for our protagonist.
Amy Caroline plays Kitty and she has a gorgeous voice, which is delightful to listen to. The songs that are written in fun specific styles are especially entertaining, especially the cowgirl-inspired one, which really suits Caroline’s voice beautifully.
This show is very sweet and has a good message about our dreams not having expiration dates, and to not be afraid to continue to explore new ventures with aplomb as we age.
Kitty’s Bound for Broadway plays at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (1723 Hollis Street, Bedford Row Doors) at the following times:
September 3: 8:45pm
September 6: 7:30pm
I was given a gift before I saw Greg Puncher and Kristyn Green’s play Butt Suckers, playing at the Neptune Scotiabank Studio Theatre, and I will give the same gift to you. I was told by different people that this play was, “the Fringiest play ever” and “traumatizing.” I did not know what my friends meant by this, and now neither do you. I went in afraid and not knowing what to expect. And I hope you will too.
In the theatre we meet Greg and Kristyn and they are packing up their things and they are breaking up. There is tension. We don’t know why they are breaking up. We get the feeling that the answer is bad, but we don’t know what kind of bad it will be. I brought some of this tension in with me because of what I had heard about the play beforehand. It made the experience even more fun for me. I hope you go in with your own tension as well. What is happening? What will happen? Why?
You will never guess.
Puncher and Green both give performances that feel at once rooted in the ordinary of packing up boxes and ordering supper, but also just a little off kilter and strange. I need to tell you that Kristyn Green has big Alana Johnston energy, and if you weren’t in Toronto ten years ago you might not know who that is, but trust me when I tell you she’s a big deal and she lives in Los Angeles and improvises with Mae Martin now. Green has a brash wackiness in an ingenue’s body.
I won’t tell you more than that.
TWISI Fringe Rating: Two Thumbs Up!
Butt Suckers plays at Neptune Theatre’s Scotiabank Studio (1589 Argyle Street) at the following times:
September 3: 10:30pm
September 7: 4:30pm
September 8: 6:45pm
I finished off the day in the Neptune Theatre Windsor Rehearsal Hall seeing Sean Mott’s play The Woman Who Was Owned Online. The story takes place in Purgatory where we meet a jovial devil of sorts and three miscreants who are being punished for their bad online behaviour.
This play is a fun idea. We have one character who is running an alt right website, and one who is preying on celebrities with lies, and one who spends her entire life roasting strangers in the comments. I think there is room for Mott to play more with the idea of who these characters are offline. Where does Diane’s pathological mean-streak come from and how does it manifest here now in Purgatory? I wanted to hear Parker’s deftly crafted podcast voice so I could better imagine what she must have been like when she was alive. Alex doesn’t want to try to fight Diane or Parker on their political views?
I liked the twist at the end, and the implication that even if we have good intentions it is hard to break the bad habits associated with our phones.
The Woman Who Was Owned Online plays at Neptune’s Windsor Rehearsal Hall (1589 Argyle Street) at the following times:
September 7: 6:30pm
September 8: 1:15pm
Halifax Fringe runs until to September 8th, 2024 in a myriad of venues throughout the Downtown and the North End of Halifax. For more information and to purchase all your tickets please visit this website. Masks are mandatory again this year inside all Halifax Fringe spaces. Neptune Theatre, The Bus Stop Theatre, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia Lecture Theatre, and the Cambridge Battery are all wheelchair accessible. Neptune Theatre and the Bus Stop Theatre both have all gender washrooms.
You can follow Halifax Fringe on Facebook. Instagram. TikTok.
A Note On TWISI Fringe Ratings:
I have never liked rating Fringe shows, or any shows, using the 5 Star system as I have done in the past, so last year I started doing something new. From now on I will just be highlighting what I think are 4 or 5 Star Fringe Shows. A Two Thumbs Up Rating equals roughly to 4 Stars, while A Two Thumbs Jump Rating equals 5 Stars. I have stolen (with permission) “Two Thumbs Jump” from my friend Lenny Clayton, who is awesome, who came up with this phrase when she was a young kid reviewing films on YouTube.
