Tag Archives: alberta theatre projects

The Seafarer, at Alberta Theatre Projects

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Show poster for The Seafarer at ATP, featuring Paul Gross

Full disclosure: I went to Calgary to watch ATP’s production of Conor McPherson’s play The Seafarer, just because Paul Gross is in it. I had never seen Paul Gross on stage, despite his Albertan roots and his strong reputation in Shakespearean material at Stratford. I have watched the TV comedy Slings and Arrows several times through – and if you haven’t and you like theatre, you should! as well as other video performances. He was an integral part of the film production Passchendaele, along with his U of A classmate Francis Damberger.

Anyway, the weather was good and the mezzanine seats were reasonably priced, so a friend and I headed to Calgary. I knew that Conor McPherson was an Irish playwright who wrote The Weir (which I’d never seen or read), and I figured out later that he’d also written Port Authority, which I’d seen in a local production with Cody Porter in it. I didn’t read anything else about the story or the other actors.

Given all that, I was blown away. Directed by Peter Pasyk, it was the best production of a straight play I’ve seen in ages. The ensemble of five was all very strong, especially Shaun Smyth (whom I remembered from the solo Playing with Fire: the Theo Fleury story). Four residents of a near-contemporary Irish suburban town are heading towards Christmas. The set is the cozy, cluttered, and dingy basement living-room of two sloppy and foul-mouthed brothers, Richard (Christopher Hunt), recently blinded in a dumpster-diving accident, and Sharkey (Smyth), who’s arrived back home after finishing a chauffeuring job up the coast. Their Christmas preparations are mostly about laying in enough drink for everyone who might drop in for a mince pie or a game of cards – even though Sharkey is counting his first few days of sobriety. Two neighbours are frequent guests: Ivan (David Trimble) who has the audience gasping every time he tumbles down or scurries up the stairs, and Nicky (Chirag Naik), who now lives with Sharkey’s ex-wife, Sharkey’s kids, and even Sharkey’s car, which he left with Eileen for the school run.

I felt completely caught up in the group’s misadventures and disagreements, even before Nicky brings in a mysterious stranger, Mister Lockhart (Paul Gross), well-dressed and quiet, with a large hat brim hiding his face. Nicky (who’s not entirely welcome to Sharkey himself) says that he met Mr. Lockhart in a pub, and brought him along for the Christmas Eve card games. It’s awkward.

In the intermission break, my companion and I discussed what had been revealed so far and whether we’d seen it coming. My friend had more insight than I had, but we both enjoyed trying to figure out whether and how these hapless characters would get out of their predicaments. Neither of us guessed the ending, and both of us felt satisfied with it. We had lots to talk about on the way home!

The Martha Cohen Theatre with its mezzanines and balconies and tiny multi-level lobby spaces was a great opportunity for this intimate character study. Set designer Hanne Loosen has created a cozy two-story set that feels like it continues off the stage into the cold back alley, the tiny kitchen, and the barely-functional downstairs toilet.

I still love Edmonton theatre, where I watch so many good plays I have trouble keeping up with posting – but this visit reminded me to keep Calgary and ATP on my radar too. The Seafarer has three more performances, the last tomorrow Nov 10th at 2 pm. If you’re in Calgary, or you’re up for a drive, some tickets are available here.

Live in Calgary!

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Photo shows Chris Enright, Trevor Schmidt, and Jake Tkaczyk, in Flora and Fawna Have Beaver Fever (And So Does Fleurette!). Picture from Lunchbox Theatre Facebook, credit TBD.

J Kelly Nestruck, the theatre reviewer for The Globe and Mail, said in a recent column, “Is any theatre scene in Canada as hopping right now as the one in Calgary?“

I can’t judge that, but last week I viewed performances of two of the three productions he mentions. The creators of both shows have Edmonton connections.

Flora and Fawna have Beaver Fever (and so does Fleurette!) by Darrin Hagen and Trevor Schmidt has three more shows as of this writing – two on Saturday afternoon and one Sunday Feb 5th at noon. In this Lunchbox Theatre production, Schmidt as 10-year-old Fawna is joined by Jake Tkaczyk and Chris Enright (Flora and Fleurette, respectively), in the roles played in the past by Hagen and by Brian Dooley.

This was my first time seeing a Lunchbox production. It had a full-enough-for-pandemic-comfort house for a show at noon on a weekday. The performers interact a bit with audience members in character before the show, reminiscent of a Fringe performance, and then the play starts with welcoming the audience as the new “junior probationary members” of the group started by these three awkward misfits and their mothers. There are rituals and activities and informational skits as earnest and clumsy as the girls themselves – the Naturelle Girls theme song is nearly as painful as an unfamiliar church congregation struggling through “He Who Would Valiant Be” – but interactions between the girls while they are running the meeting tell us more about the characters and their lives. I loved the running joke of saying that certain mean girls “shall not be named”, but watching Fawna take delight in actually telling on them. The version of history performed in their skits skewers both white capitalist colonialism and the ways it might be understood by 21st-century children. (“And then the Hudson’s Bay Company discovered Hudson’s Bay! What a coincidence!”)

One of the layers of entertainment in this show is that the actors deliver lots of doubles entendres, mostly about beaver(s), plus it’s just really funny to see adult men playing these 10yo girls in shapeless tunics and practical haircuts, Fawna playing with her dress, Flora slouching to be less of a target, and Fleurette eager to participate but usually cut off by her Anglophone friends.

There’s also a storyline with some suspense – what is Fawna trying to avoid talking about? – and some truly touching resolution and message, completely consistent with the character development.

Tickets for the remaining performances are available here. Lunchbox participates in the REP and takes the usual precautions.

Louise Casemore in Undressed. Photo by Erin Wallace.

Alberta Theatre Projects is also in downtown Calgary, in the Arts Commons building. It’s currently hosting a run of Louise Casemore’s Undressed, an original solo performance exploring the idea of auctioning off used wedding dresses. Casemore plays the auctioneer but also embodies several of the dress donors. The auctioneer talks about various kinds of single-use and extravagant artifacts used in weddings, and says that the event tries to find new homes for as many of them as possible. Finding another couple with the same names to use leftover personalized napkins amused me, and the callback gag about herding a flock of peacocks to its new owner was also droll. I was a little puzzled about how the proceeds of the auction were intended to benefit an organization called “Zero Waste Canada” (it seems to be a real thing), but in one part of the story a woman sells one wedding dress in order to buy another, more aspirational one, and I was distracted by wondering how that worked. I liked the shy lesbian who had never expected she’d get to have a wedding.

I have been to ATP before, for Waiting for the Parade and for Glory. This time, the main level of the Martha Cohen auditorium was arranged cabaret/coffeehouse style, with seating around tables, presumably with parties seated separately. Undressed runs until February 13th, with tickets available here.