I started Day 7 of Halifax Fringe at the Neptune Theatre Windsor Rehearsal Hall seeing Lawson Hannaford’s poignant play Something Missing.
We are introduced to Chester (August van Meekeren) and their propensity for making lists. They are stressed about having to go home to spend Christmas with their very recently divorced mom and their sister, Abby (Emma Davidson). When we arrive with them at their house we meet their mom, Lynn (played by Nancy Kenny) and we see a woman trying desperately to make a special day for her young adult children amid a traumatic time in her own life. She is also struggling to connect with Chester, who came out as non-binary three years ago, has changed their name, and just had top surgery. Abby also has a secret she isn’t sure her mother is ready for, and she is trying to balance protecting her mother from her father, from her sibling, and even from her own truth with also being able to enjoy her own holiday. She just wants to keep the peace this Christmas- at any cost- but Chester has some things they want to… well… get off their chest. (Sorry).
Hannaford has written a really beautifully nuanced story here where the audience really feels a lot of empathy for all three of the characters and their disparate points of view. Lynn is a character whose good intentions, compounded with the context of her own generation and experience, really shines through, but then we see how, despite all this, Chester still often feels resentful and hurt by what she says or what she doesn’t say. This feels very true to life. Lynn is not a transphobic villain, but she is learning more slowly than her children would like, and is flawed, and Chester wants her to be more perfect, in the way that many children want their parents and their relationship with their parents to be more perfect.
The cast do a very good job of creating dynamics with one another that feel rich, complex and familial. Kenny is especially heartbreaking as a mom just trying to do what is best for her children, and having to contend with the fact that she has not been fully measuring up.
This is a real gem of the Fringe. It has a lot of heart and depth, and a little bit of Christmas.
TWISI Fringe Rating: Two Thumbs Jump!
Something Missing plays at Neptune Theatre’s Imperial Rehearsal Hall (1589 Argyle Street) at the following times:
September 7: 12:45 & 6:00pm
September 8: 5:15pm
Next I saw Sam Bambrick’s play After/Thought, which is definitely a play that I would recommend seeing when your brain is fresh and alert, as it is a creative science fiction adaptation of Aeschylus’ play Prometheus Bound (479-424 BCE), and you are going to want a sharp mind to follow the story.
In Ancient Greek myth Prometheus angered Zeus when he taught the humans how to use fire. In After/Thought, set in the future, Promo (played by Jesse Robb) has met the wrath of Zeus by informing the humans that the world they know, Pandora, is actually a computer simulation programmed by the gods. As punishment Promo has be stripped of his “transhuman powers,” which leaves him physically paralyzed (and trapped in a broom closet). He is visited by some friends, Liz (Jessica Oliver), and Jack (Keith Morrison) and Io (Gabrielle Therrien), who basically seems to be Zeus’ sex slave; they want to help Promo, and also contemplate staging a revolt against Zeus’ absolute power.
I like that Bambrick drops us into the thick of the action (and I am tired and may have missed some things), but I think there is some space for her to add a little bit more context and exposition, especially for those who are less familiar with the source material. I was impressed with the way she mixes the classical language with science fiction language in interesting ways.
While Promo is unconscious at the beginning of the play we are told that his torture will be beyond the scope of what anyone could possibly bear. I was surprised, then, once he awakened, to hear how easily he spoke and at such length in ways that continually make a lot of sense. Gabrielle Therrien’s Io, in comparison, seems to have a chip in her brain that keeps malfunctioning causing her to speak in jilted and sometimes muddled ways. Therrien also comes in with a haunted look in her eyes and a deep rooted despair that really raise the stakes of the play. Robb’s steady calm exudes admirable strength, but I wondered if perhaps at times even he might buckle under Zeus’ thumb?
Nick Cox directs the play well in the tiny Imperial rehearsal hall space, making good use of levels, although, he could constrict the action even more to make the closet feel more claustrophobic.
The play ends abruptly, which I liked, and I wondered if there might be a sequel in the works? I really like this mixture of worlds between the ancient and the future and I feel invested in Io and Promo’s plight against Zeus, and the plight of the humans trapped in Pandora. I would happily spend another hour exploring this world another time.
TWISI Fringe Rating: Two Thumbs Up!
After/Thought plays at the Neptune Theatre Imperial Rehearsal Hall at the following times:
September 6: 10:30pm
September 7: 7:45pm
September 8: 1:45pm
Lastly I went back in time to 1959 Paraguay with Juanita Bang Bang, the Latina drag queen and host of I Am 108, which closed tonight in Neptune Theatre’s Imperial Rehearsal Hall.
Juanita Bang Bang (actor and playwright Luis Bellassai) introduces us to 1950s Paraguay, a place where people are very Catholic and living under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner. He has promised to protect the culture and traditions of his people; he will also protect the country’s children from the “immoral” and the “depraved.” Under Stroessner most Paraguayans embrace very traditional gender roles, and those who don’t are forced to hide their sexuality or else face the consequences, both from their government and within their own families.
Juanita tells us about the (real life) murder of Bernardo Aranda, a young gay radio host, from the perspective of the shaken wife of his landlord. This was a watershed moment in Paraguay where Stroessner went from maintaining that there were no gay folks in Paraguay to rounding up 108 men thought to be connected to a fraternity of “amorals” on the suspicion of being involved with this murder.
What is incredible about Bellassai’s performance here is how quickly he can oscillate between capturing queer joy in music and lip syncing, finding the humour in the flamboyance of Juanita, but also switching in to bleak seriousness when discussing the fallout from this murder case. While being LGBTQ+ has been legal in Paraguay since 1990, Paraguay continues to be one of the most conservative countries regarding LGBTQ+ rights in South America.
Here in Halifax I am sure there are many folks like me who know very little about Paraguay in general and absolutely nothing about this historic event there. This play does a really beautiful job of mixing a drag performance with a much more sobering historical lesson that helps to preserve the memories of these 108 men who were persecuted, and the small acts of resistance and rebellion, as Bellassai points out, which happened well before the famed Stonewall Riots, that led to queer folks slowly having the courage to refuse to hide themselves and their lives away from the public eye, and to force their very Catholic society to acknowledge their existence.
The show was very well directed by Luciana Silvestre Fernandes, and I was really riveted by this story and by the way that it was told, as sometimes I think here in Canada audiences can divorce drag from politics because it has become quite mainstream. But here Juanita doesn’t allow us to disengage from the context from whence she came. Her performance is an act not just of celebration and pride, but also of resistance, and remembrance.
TWISI Fringe Rating: Two Thumbs Jump!
I Am 108 has closed in Halifax but it will be performed in the STAND Festival in North Vancouver on November 17th. Tickets are available for that here.
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.
