Two Planks and a Passion Theatre’s gala opening for its 35th season was marked by joy and high drama amid the glorious fields and skies of the North Mountain near Canning.
The weather was dramatic; the fact there was a season at all was dramatic; and the two plays, to August 15, are rich and rewarding outdoor theatre that sticks in the mind and the heart.
It was a blistering hot evening with gorgeous light and the burp of bullfrogs from a nearby pond, then suddenly halfway through Emma Donoghue’s folk musical, The Wind Coming Over the Sea, everything shifted. Just as the Irish immigration tale took a sudden twist at the start of its second act, a cool wind blew in off of the Bay of Fundy and the temperature dropped by 10 degrees.
By 9 p.m., when the audience gathered around a blazing campfire for the mesmerizing and super-creepy drama, The Monkey’s Paw by Fire, people were in sweaters and wrapped in comfy blankets that did nothing to dispel the spine-tingling chills of the popular 1902 tale by British author W.W. Jacobs.
Awardwinning Irish-Canadian writer Emma Donoghue (Slammerkin, Room, The Pull of the Stars) attended Saturday’s performance of The Wind Coming Over the Sea, inspired by the true story of an Irish couple escaping the Famine to start a new life in Canada.
Donoghue, an immigrant herself, discovered this story in the letters of Henry and Jane Johnson saved by their Ontario descendants. She creates an authentic portrayal of what it would have been like to sail across the stormy Atlantic, be greeted without welcome and suffer setback after setback – experiences that immigrants still have today. There’s even a reference to “building a wall.” At the same time she explores the universality of love and loss with a beautiful poignancy.
The story and its emotions are largely carried in the letters and, with musical director Allen Cole and assistant musical director Ian Sherwood, in beautifully harmonized Irish song from romantic ballads to toe-tappers to tragic laments.
Jailed for debt after giving too much credit to his starving grocery store customers, Henry Johnson decides to find new opportunities in Canada with Jane and their two children to follow.
The hardships are very realistically detailed in quick scenes with minimal props and good physical conjuring. Actor Hugh Ritchie, present in almost every scene, has a lovely voice and authentically crafts this unlucky adventurer with a fondness for drink and a deep love for his “red-haired girl.” (He is also remarkably good at realistic vomiting.)
Central to this production is Becca Guilderson’s excellent portrayal of Jane as a strong, generally confident character unwavering in her love for a husband but unsure of her family’s future. She has a lovely lilting voice and a compelling presence.
As the story moves authentically from place to place and obstacle to obstacle it slows down in the first act. However, just like the ever-changing Bay of Fundy weather, everything shifts in the second act with a plot twist, some colourful characters, high emotion and a humourous, uplifting ending that is imaginatively staged.
This is definitely a close-knit ensemble production with five actors apart from Guilderson and Ritchie moving fluidly on and off the grassy stage playing a variety of characters from nasty storeowners to French Canadians to Jane’s parents, in lovely performances tinged with comedy by Tim Machin as the father and Chris O’Neill as the mother. Lily Falk and Sophie Schade incarnate three of Jane’s lively sisters.
The simplicity of the set apart from the grandeur of nature and the purity and intelligence of Ken Schwartz’s direction are offset by highly detailed costumes, in this case detailled, period-looking garments of changing layers and colours. Jane has a playful splash of colour and costume designer Diego Cavedon Dias talks, in their notes, about keeping her clothing warm in tone with her shawl also key “to support her role as caregiver.” Jane’s pink frill and sweet shoes and green stockings Z- spunk. 1 sisters hat.
The Wind Coming Over the Sea runs at just over two hours including intermission (with drinks and sweets served under a tent) on Tuesday, 5 p.m.; Wednesdays, 6 p.m., Saturdays, 5 p.m., and Sundays, 2 p.m. For tickets go to: https://artscentre.ca
This year’s fireside show at 9 p.m., The Monkey’s Paw by Fire, adapted by director Ken Schwartz, runs at 9 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 9 p.m.
The hour-long drama goes off like a rocket from its very opening scene. As a terrible storm rages outside, a comfortable family sits in their cozy, modest country home awaiting the arrival of old friends – a couple who’s been working in India.
Nervous excitement turns to unease when the couple arrives in a state of agitation, quickly handing off a monkey’s paw that has supernatural powers to grant its holder three wishes. The father is amused and the family decides on a benign first wish setting off a horrible, completely unanticipated series of events.
The tragedy is arbitrary; bad things happen to good people. “The horror is that the play is much less like a fairy tale and more like reality than we might have anticipated,” Schwartz, artistic director of Two Planks and a Passion Theatre, writes in the program.
The sudden nature of horror visited upon good people is frightening; one thinks of ICE raids (and killings) or any number of outside events destroying decent people and their families throughout the centuries.
This story so perfectly suits a fireside telling with the ever-stoked fire acting as the family hearth. The shadows at its edges grow larger and scarier in the ever-deepening darkness. At one point when the paw was dropped on the ground I couldn’t see it and I shouted in my head, “Get that thing away from me!”
The actors are excellent at moving from a contented domesticity towards shock and horror. Chris O’Neill is a stand-out as Bethany the mother who makes an incredible demand on her husband in a riveting scene. Tim Machin as the father Jeremiah is a robust, empathetic character with Sam Vigneault sweet as the son Edgar. In a brief and tender scene Edgar sips his morning coffee by the fire establishing his contentment with life.
Sophie Schade is entertaining as the somewhat fierce and teasing sister Sarah with Lily Falk and Hugh Ritchie playing the tormented couple from India and Becca Guilderson as the odd news-deliverer, Rebecca Jacobs. The family is so well portrayed briefly in brief, authentic strokes that that the horror that befalls it is deeply felt.
This production, directed by Schwartz for a delicious tension and strong emotion, features an excellent use of sound, designed by Allen Cole, starting with a barrel that is spun to create the sound of a fierce wind and creepy scratching sounds to announce presences. Key to the set is a red door with a lamp acting as the portal between light and warmth and the cold, dark unknown.
Diego Cavedon Dias’s costumes are remarkable concoctions of upcycled, quilted pieces of fabric in reds for the family and blues for the couple from India all with a steampunk edge. Their intent, as stated in the notes was to “reflect a quiet sense of catastrophe – an attempt atelegance that ultimately reveals itself as unstable and fractured.” The costumes are unusual, beautiful and unsettling.
While both plays can be viewed separately it’s so much fun to experience them both in one night (on Tuesdays and Saturdays) allowing for the magic of seeing the same actors craft characters in completely scenarios and for contemplating connected themes of love of family, history, religion and the shock of the unexpected. I can’t imagine a better date night than having a picnic on the mountain and seeing The Monkey’s Paw cuddled up together on a bleacher in front of a fire.
Summer theatre is to be celebrated this summer. In March Two Planks and a Passion Theatre lost $47,000 in provincial budget cuts to arts and culture as well as other sectors. The season was in jeopardy. Two Plank’s co-founder and the centre’s executive director Chris O’Neill became tearful as she spoke at a reception about the overwhelming support of donors who stepped in to save its two-show season.
“So many of you in this room and across Canada and even around the world heard our distress call and the response – immediately and overwhelmingly generous – is the only reason we’re standing with you today.”
This is a big weekend for summer theatre with Frenchy’s: The Thrift Musical, a co-production by Ship’s Company Theatre and Eastern Front Theatre, and Rent at Neptune both opening tonight. Already up is Theatre Baddeck’s Myth of the Ostrich and Shakepeare by the Sea’s Beauty and the Beast to be followed by Julius Caesar. Festival Antigonish opens Wednesday, July 15, with Murder at Ackerton Manor and the new Mulgrave Road Theatre Centre for the Arts opens with For Love Nor Money, July 14 (preview) to July 19 (matinee).
Theatre Nova Scotia has a full list of theatre and theatrical events in the province this summer at Now Playing – Theatre Nova Scotia
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NS reviews 
Thanks, Elissa, for continuing to offer strong and thoughtful reviews of local theatre. I saw The Wind Coming Over the Sea and thought it was riveting. It’s good to read your review, compare reactions, and recall the details I may have missed.
I was with a young woman at her first live theatre experience. It was wonderful to see her becoming caught up in the lives and emotions of the actors. Theatre enriches life, and I’m glad that you continue to share your experience of it with the rest pf is.
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