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In Bottle Neck, by Michaela Sheldon, we see a young woman, her mom and a friend each bringing their own perspectives to the challenging topic of mental illness, while Connecting Rooms: A Tribute by Florence Button offers the perspectives of a wide range of women across multiple time periods who experienced the Labrador fishery.
While the topics and approaches from these playwrights couldn’t be more different, both plays are built around strong and compelling characters. It was interesting and exciting to see two scripts in development and imagine the possibilities as these plays move from reading and workshopping to performance. While currently less than 30 minutes in length, Bottle Neck is set up to become a five-act play. The set also promises to be a fun one for any set designer, as the central mother and daughter are living in a hoarded house. As Brianna (charmingly portrayed by Cheney Emberg) and her mother Cordelia open the lines of communication and clear the air, one can imagine that the space also would phyisically “clear up.” I was impressed by Bailey Jackson’s reading of Cordelia – a challenging role to portray. As anyone who has suffered from depression will recognize, there’s the person you show to the outside world and the one that lives within. Playing a person playing a personality ain’t easy; this will be an exciting role for any actress, and I encourage you to keep building on that dichotomy, Michaela! It is clear from the current draft that each of the main characters can have an excellent opportunity for growth, change and understanding in a full-length play. As Brianna opens up to her mom and friend Stephanie (Lonni Patey) about how the living conditions are impacting her life, Cordelia begins to understand how her hoarding behaviours began. There are also excellent opportunities to develop the Stephanie character – that friend who really wants to help but is challenged to understand, not all problems are fixable with a can of furniture polish. I hope seeing her play performed and getting feedback from audiences helps this talented young playwright clear any “bottlenecks” on the road to the stage for this promising play. After an intermission, night two continued with a dramatic reading of Connecting Rooms: A Tribute. Playwright Florence Button has a gift for dialogue; she brilliantly captured the authentic sound of outport Newfoundland – in particular Carbonear – and there were some really funny and moving moments in this 90-minute play. She also did a wonderful job portraying Maude, a housekeeper and cook working out of the ‘rooms’ on the south east coast of Labrador. The small stage was jam packed with performers, each telling their Labrador experience through a series of dramatic monologues. Congratulations to Sarah Southwell, Ava Porter, Carloyn Pike, Michaela Sheldon, Robyn Pike, Emma Hewitt, Loretta Oates, Lonni Patey, George Robertson, Josh Gover and Florence. I was left wondering how this play would be staged, and my friend and I debated options to bring the stories to life the whole way home. Who are the women talking to? Each other? Themselves? Has some outside catalyst brought their stories to life? Would they interact? The performance began with a dramatized scene then moved into the series of monologues. I would encourage the playwright to consider how some of those solo stories could be told through dialogue, really bringing the stories alive! Ok. I’ll admit it. This is the not the first time I’ve been listening to a bit of provincial history in a play and been shocked by my own lack of awareness about something I should know more about. Of course women worked alongside men in the fishery. Of course mothers took their kids out of school and moved lock, stock and barrel – using less than ideal transportation systems -hundreds of miles away for months at a time. Of course. But why don’t we know more about it? Because we don’t talk about it, celebrate it, and raise it up. I look forward to more “herstory” and personal awareness opportunities as the week continues.…But not tonight night. Sure, that’s all about The Importance of Being Foolish, written and performed by two small but mighty provincial icons, Amy House and Berni Stapleton. See you at Lady Mackerel’s Retirement Home for Lesser Known Actors at 7 p.m. Thursday night. Bring your sense of humour and your walkers.
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The First Light Centre for Performance and Creativity saw a sizable house for the opening night of the Year of the Arts Women’s Play Festival, and I think it’s fair to say that attendees enjoyed the staged reading of I Dropped a Stitch, by Janet Edmonds. The performance concluded with a rousing standing ovation.
Let me say, first of all, I’m a sucker for dramatic readings done well. Companies looking to make a reading a success could take a lesson from this talented group. Petrina Bromley, Una Hill McMullin, Darryl Hopkins, Alexis Koetting and Andrew Tremblett did a stellar job of bringing the words on the page to life last night. With nothing more than microphones and music stands, the actors (skillfully supported by Robert Chafe reading stage directions) created vivid pictures… of the kitchen, the daybed in the corner, the colourful, knitted scarves and the plot twisting conclusion to this drama. I Dropped a Stitch is constructed around familial themes: the challenges of parenting, the lasting impacts of lost pregnancies, the loss of community connections, and how far a mother will go to protect her only son. It’s a murder mystery of sorts, but not your typical who-dunnit. Over the course of the one-hour reading, we watched as Melinda (read by Petrina Bromley) tries to pick up the dropped stitches of her family’s life without unravelling all the work she’s done raising son Hayward (Andrew Tremblett). Hayward is suspected of murdering his fiancée Brenda (Una Hill McMullin), but it's Melinda who’s haunted by Brenda’s ghost. Even though husband Carl (Darryl Hopkins) encourages Melinda to stop protecting the wayward Hayward (sorry, Janet, but I couldn’t resist!), it’s RCMP Officer Nicole Jamieson (Alexis Koetting) who helps Melinda realize what she must do in the end – “Take care of your son.” I’ll say no more, because this play will make it from the page to stage soon, I’m sure. Before the reading began, playwright and dramaturge Robert Chafe explained to the audience that, other than a few lines here and there, the reading tonight was essentially “the play” as Janet left it before her death in 2017. The actors were reading from scripts which included Janet’s handwritten notes and scratches, a nice touch. Stitch certainly sparkles of her wit and includes clever and intelligent dialogue. Janet even made her presence known at the end of the night. As Artistic Director Jenn Deon was explaining that I would be doing reviews each night, the microphone fed back, and Petrina intoned from the stage, “Janet didn’t like a critic!” I knew Janet a little. We took theatre classes in university together, and our paths crossed many times living in St. John’s. I think she would have been very proud tonight. Robert Chafe indicated that the play deserves to be staged, and I was pleased to hear Janet wanted him to make that happen. If you’re not familiar with Chafe’s work, well… you’ve dropped a stitch yourself. From Tempting Providence, to Oil and Water, to Between Breaths, he just keeps getting better and better. His plays (and dynamic partnership with Jillian Keiley through Artistic Fraud) are producing some of the most creative theatrical experiences in this country today. …Is the next national, theatrical success-story appearing in one of the 16 shows featured over the 12 nights of this festival? That’s what I find most exciting about this event and the ongoing work of PerSIStence Theatre to celebrate and provide professional opportunities for women and those facing gender-based barriers. Tonight there are two featured shows, both by new playwrights. Bottle Neck by Michaela Sheldon is about “…the unidealized experience of a young woman raised by a single mother who struggles with mental illness,”; and Connecting Rooms: A Tribute by Florence Button explores the lives of eight women who worked alongside the men in the Labrador fishery. Shows start at 7 p.m. See you there! - Susan Bonnell |
About Susan BonnellSusan Bonnell is Vice-President of Theatre CBS and an active community theatre performer and director in the St. John's area.
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St. John’s is home to a rich, diverse, and vibrant urban Indigenous community. Located on the ancestral and unceded territory of the Beothuk, the lands and waters in and around the City have traditionally served as a gathering place for the Mi’kmaq. The broader region of Newfoundland and Labrador continues to be home to diverse Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. We honour and pay respect to the past, present, and future caretakers of these territories.
We also must acknowledge the labour theft extracted from people of African descent, used to build European wealth and economies globally, and in the Canadian nation state, including Newfoundland and Labrador’s shipbuilding and cod fishery industries, through the violence of trans-Atlantic enslavement.
We thank both First Light and the office of the Vice-Provost of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism at Memorial University for crafting and sharing these words that provide us with important perspectives.
We also must acknowledge the labour theft extracted from people of African descent, used to build European wealth and economies globally, and in the Canadian nation state, including Newfoundland and Labrador’s shipbuilding and cod fishery industries, through the violence of trans-Atlantic enslavement.
We thank both First Light and the office of the Vice-Provost of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism at Memorial University for crafting and sharing these words that provide us with important perspectives.
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