Anyone who has ever struggled with a family illness will recognize the pain, joy and love in Melissa Mullen’s powerful new play Still Dancing.

Premiering at Ship’s Company Theatre to Sept. 1, the two-hour drama opened to a standing ovation last Friday night with – appropriately – a band playing on the deck as folks emerged teary-eyed from the theatre while artistic director Laura Vingoe-Cram encouraged everyone to keep on dancing.

The beauty in Mullen’s play – apart from her deep understanding of humanity – is the cloak of humour and upbeat music she wraps around a sad and familiar story of aging parents, confused and upset children and tremendous conflict. She makes the hard truths palatable. This play’s energy is essentially comic; its ending beautiful and uplifting.

At the centre of Still Dancing, directed by Vingoe-Cram, is Martha Irving’s remarkable performance as Ellen, a woman suffering from rapidly progressing MS and still managing to live at home with her devoted, high-energy, rocker husband, Frank, who tries to keep life light and full of dance.

Irving brings a powerful physicality and emotional power to her performance. It’s easy to feel the pain and cramping in her hands, the supreme frustration at the uselessness of her legs, her character’s effort to hide her struggles from her family, Ellen’s desire to go along with a jovial husband who pretends things are better than they are.

But when Frank has a health problem, this family is thrown into crisis. Daughter Joanne (Amy Reitsma) lives nearby, assists in the care of her mother and has been grateful to her parents for their support in her business and in raising her musician son Kevin (recent Dalhousie theatre grad Tip Finless).

Daughter Allyson (Geneviève Steele) is a tightly-wound accountant and mother of teen boys who lives a few hours drive away and wants to swoop in and “fix” everything before she takes off again. She does not want to engage with her mother, with whom she does not get along.

The play starts with a manic energy full of wheelchair dancing and loud laughter and song but then all the complexities and and secrets come out making for a very intense, powerful and realistic second act. Once this production nails its rhythm and balance – about halfway through the first act – all the notes are spot on.

Paul Rainville as the zippy, buoyant Frank gets inside his character’s unhappiness, deep familial love and desperation to keep his wife at home. Reitsma as Joanne finds her relaxed, loving qualities, her frustrations and her fury at her sister. Steele, lean and full of frustrated energy, eventually carves out Allyson as an emotionally wounded creature.

Everyone will recognize something within themselves in Still Dancing: guilt, sadness, confusion, resentment, being overwhelmed, trying to hold onto something that is disappearing, resistance to change, the ability to find humour in the tragic.

Mullen, a Prince Edward Island playwright, is drawing on her own experiences as both a daughter to an ill mother and a caregiver to her mother-in-law and she deeply understands the swirl of emotions, desperation and fault lines around degenerative disease in families.

Director Vingoe-Cram also draws on a personal experience of family illness and conflict. There are two scenes in the second act of parent/daughter encounters that are beautifully directed – pitch perfect.

The realism of Still Dancing is thoroughly held within the design with Andrea Evans’ set of a 1970s era bungalow full of vintage objects including a modest record-player, old clocks and retro flour and sugar canisters. Since Frank and Ellen both love music and met on a dance floor, the soundtrack is crucial to this show and sound designer Jackson Fairfax Perry has done an electrifying job. Also crucial since dancing is one way this family comes together is the excellent choreography by Maeghan Taverner.

Lighting design by Alison Crosby focusses the eye and the mood, while Diego Cavedon Diaz’s costumes fill in the character of Mullen’s people.

The Parrsboro area has a deep history, going back to the dinosaurs in a history written into the rock and forward to early shipping settlements written in the town’s buildings. The Ship’s Company Theatre, itself, is celebrating its 40^th anniversary. Mullen’s honest and endearing story, so rooted in everyday human experience, shines out as art does amidst all of our human history.

To Go:

Home – Ship’s Company Theatre (shipscompanytheatre.com)

Still Dancing runs to Sept. 1 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday with matinees Saturday August 24, 2 p.m.; Sunday, August 25, 2 p.m.; Wednesday, August 28, 2 p.m.; Saturday, Aug. 31, 2 p.m. and Sunday, August 1, 2 p.m., which is the final show. There is a buy one get one free deal August 22 and 23 and this Saturday, August 24, Eastern Front Theatre is leading a field trip from Halifax to the Ship which includes a post-show chat and other fun destinations along the way. (AUGUST 24 FIELD TRIP: Still Dancing | Eastern Front (easternfronttheatre.com)

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