Night Eleven. Just wow.

Night Eleven at the Year of the Arts Women’s Play Festival featured Iphis Is a Man, ​written and directed by Cheney Emberg.

At the show, I sat down with my friend Jean Graham who appeared in last night’s Is This the Hill You Wish You'd Died On? I’m pleased to say that Jean will be filling in for me for Night Twelve as I have a wedding to attend. As we chatted, Jean showed me her phone and a Facebook memory from this night seven years ago. I had posted: “I was honoured to be there tonight to watch Persistence Theatre take flight.” It was opening night of Isle of Demons, which we both attended, and here we were, together again, as this Festival of arts draws to a close. So nice. Jean and I watched the young cast gathered for this reading and marvelled at their energy and enthusiasm.

Iphis Is a Man is inspired by the ancient Greek myth of Iphis as recorded by Ovid in Metamorphoses. It’s a “coming-of-age story of a boy trying to navigate what it means to be a man in a 374 BC Greece that looks and sounds a lot like our 21st-century western world.” Only trouble is, at 15, Iphis begins to develop breasts and has a period. 

I can’t say enough about this play. I was completely blown away by its intelligence and humour. It was part mythology, part morality play, part romcom and 100% one of the most entertaining things I’ve seen all week. I laughed out loud, smiled the whole way through, and had several “ah-ha” moments; if the Greek’s wanted their drama to produce a catharis (see, it was the Greeks and NOT Oprah who should get the credit for the “ah-ha!”), then Cheney channelled their inner Aristotle.

More on Cheney later, but first let me congratulate the cast on this staged reading. Leading the pack was Mallory Clarke as both Telethusa and Ligdus, Iphis’ mother and father. Mallory’s performance of both characters was just plain brilliant; as were Murphy V as Iphis and Nonceba Khumalo as Ianthe. Their comic timing was amazing. Nabila Qureshi playing something of the straight man was equally strong as Dmitri, and I loved the delivery of Ophelia Delight as the Goddess Isis. Brandon Cave stage managed and read the funniest stage directions ever and played various roles including a hormonal teen that the audience just died for.

This play is so fresh, so energetic and so positive! There were so many wonderful moments, from Telethusa’s visions of catastrophy (why didn’t I think of that when my kids were teens?!) to references to modern culture (Isis telling Iphis he’s not seeing Elysium but Vegas, baby!) to jokes breaking the fourth wall (…that one’s for all the old biddies in the audience). 

Cheney Emberg is a director, playwright, actor, comedian, and collage-maker from Houston who moved to St. John’s three years ago. This is one of two plays they are currently working on. In introducing the play, Cheney said that the show we were about to see was draft two. Unbelievable. I’m sure there are things that can be done to improve the show, but boy oh boy, it was pretty good on Friday night. Clever, intellectual, campy, tongue-in-cheek writing. 

As I sat and watched this staged reading, seven years to the day that PerSIStence got its birth, I couldn’t help but feel all the feels watching this young team on the stage and contemplating the future. 

I have tried to be as accurate and eloquent as possible in writing these recaps nightly, but I’m very much struggling to put into words how I felt sitting in that audience tonight. So here goes…

Holy s#*t. 
​
I think I just heard the voice of the new generation, and their name is Cheney Emberg.