Tag Archives: kat evans

Kat Sandler’s Yaga – clever, hilarious, and disturbing

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N Girgis in Yaga. Set CM Zuby, Lights Even Gilchrist. Production Photos Marc J. Chalifoux Photography and Video

I did something the other night as an audience member that I don’t think I’ve ever done before. The lights went down at the end of an amazing play, then came up again on one performer (Emily Howard) beaming in a way they hadn’t done as a character, so I started clapping and rolled to my feet. I rarely participate in standing ovations because I think they should be rare accolades, but Kat Sandler’s Yaga deserved it.

And then — the plot which had kept me guessing all night had one more twist – the play wasn’t over. There was a reason why the character’s face had been transformed with happiness, and she filled in some details and set us up for a whole ‘nother ending, even more satisfying. And I stood up again!

Yaga alludes to the Slavic legend of Baba Yaga, the witch who lives in a chicken-legged hut in the woods and flies around in a pestle steering with a mortar. I knew the kid-appropriate versions of this legend, first because my family subscribed to Jack&Jill magazine when I was young, and it had a series of Baba Yaga stories – not quite too scary for an imaginative kid. And in 2019, Alberta Musical Theatre Company did a musical version of Baba Yaga at the Fringe.

The play Yaga starts with a performer in black hooded cloak (N Girgis) drifting downstage from among the dead trees and scrap wood of the set (CM Zuby), invoking and critiquing the tale of the witch in the woods in accented English. Then there’s a shift to a contemporary student’s room. The student Henry (Maxwell Vesely) has invited Professor Catherine Yazov (Girgis) home, after having interviewed her for his podcast. Their interaction is highly flirtatious – Catherine is clearly enjoying making Henry uncomfortable.

Another shift – and police detective Carson (Emily Howard) is being questioned by a private investigator (Vesely) about Henry’s disappearance.

The narrative continues in a non-linear way, with the three performers portraying at least eleven characters. Different locations are shown by small shifts to the set – folding down what looks like a piece of fencing to become a desk in the detective’s office, setting a basket of condiments on a table to put the characters in a roadhouse restaurant, pulling across a flimsy fabric drape on metal rings to create a hospital cubicle. Performers don and doff costume pieces (Kat Evans) to portray characters of widely varying ages and roles in the town. Direction by Lana Michelle Hughes keeps the transitions smooth but clear, without delays, and the tension rising and rising.

Emily Howard and Maxwell Vesely as detectives in Yaga. Set CM Zuby, Lights Even Gilchrist. Production Photos Marc J. Chalifoux Photography and Video

Girgis’ cloaked archetype reappears periodically and points out some of the ways the assumption is in the myth follow patriarchal expectations – why is it that the solitary powerful woman in the woods is assumed sexless, childless, and ugly? What if she wasn’t?

It’s eerie and atmospheric (I was reminded of Cat Walsh’s The Laws of Thermodynamics and of The X-Files) and it was a fascinating mystery where criminals and victims, motives and history all had us guessing until late, and then wrapped up satisfyingly. Also, it is hilarious. From the remote old Ukrainian witch’s use of modern earthy bluntness to the two detectives’ verbal sparring, the script is very funny and the delivery matches it. My friend Marc Chalifoux mentioned Twin Peaks and I was sorry I hadn’t thought of that comparison first.

Design elements enhance the atmosphere and narrative. Chris Scott’s soundscapes and Even Gilchrist’s lighting designs, Kat Evans’ costuming and the c.m. zuby set create the twists and turns, the feelings and the stillness and the inevitable outcomes.

Kat Sandler is the Toronto playwright whose intertwined plays The Candidate and The Party were performed in overlapping high-speed repertory at the Citadel a few years ago. She’s also currently showrunner for the miniseries version of Yaga which will premiere on Crave next week starring Hudson Williams, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Noah Reid. And if you want more immersion, Shadow is also selling paperback scripts of Yaga and a few other Sandler plays at their box office.

Yaga is playing at the Varscona Theatre until November 1st, with tickets here. Expect award nominations for this one.

A lovely musical about memories: Morningside Road

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[Posted without imagery due to web-host issue]

Last night I was able to attend the preview performance of Morningside Road, the musical created by Mhairi Berg and Simon Abbott. It’s the first production of Shadow Theatre’s new season, and it was directed by incoming artistic director Lana Hughes.

I was enchanted. Right from entering the auditorium and seeing the set – I thought to myself, I bet that’s a Daniel van Heyst design, and I was right. The set includes a realistic homey kitchen nook with tea things and a collection of family photos, but also a more abstract area with bits of low stone wall, which becomes various outdoor city locations.

I stayed caught up in the story with three likeable characters, Elaine (contemporary Elaine was played by Maureen Rooney and Elaine of memory was played by Mhairi Berg), the Girl (Elaine’s grand-daughter, Mhairi Berg), and the Lad (Cameron Kneteman). It wasn’t the first “how my grandparents met” play that I’ve seen – Megan and Beth Dart’s Ursa Major was another memorable one – but the story was engaging and the structure worked very well, shifting between now and back-then, between a kitchen in Canada and a city street in Edinburgh. The pacing was appropriate – I never felt like a scene or a song was too long, and I appreciated the various musical callbacks and familiar riffs adding to the continuity. Partway through, I realized that part of what I was admiring was deft lighting design (Liekke den Bakker), with smooth shifts between times/locations/moods and no heavy-handed dimming of areas I was looking at. Costuming (Kat Evans) was that kind of deceptively-simple that perfectly suited the characters and setting but didn’t distract. Of course practical-grandmother Elaine would be wearing slacks and long cardigans and the same comfortable shoes that my own mother wore for years, rather than more old-fashioned housedresses and aprons, and the other performers wore vaguely-timeless outfits that weren’t out of place in 1940s Edinburgh or in the more modern scenes.

The live musical ensemble of Simon Abbott, Curtis den Otter, and Viktoria Grynenko is located upstage centre behind a screen, which worked very well for sound balance and also allowed for the actors to include them in some scenes more actively. One of the songs, That Blessèd Wedding Day, was a lively catchy community-storytelling piece with dancing, in a folk-song idiom like Great Big Sea.

Rooney’s Elaine has clearly been telling stories about her life to her granddaughter for many years. The two of them are allies, more strongly connected than the offstage daughter/mother in between. I was reminded of my own late (great-)Aunt Elaine, who came to Canada from Scotland as a war bride and remained a daily crossword-puzzle fiend well into her 90s. The motif of one person’s story becoming common property, so that the younger generation might object or correct when the grandparent tries telling the story differently (“that’s not right!”) was also familiar and fascinating. Suggestions of Elaine beginning to lose her memory / memories and executive functioning were also done with a light touch.

The music was lovely and it contributed to the storytelling and the character portrayals. I had not heard Rooney sing before, but I was very impressed.

I wasn’t able to see the version of this musical that Berg and Abbott presented at last year’s Fringe festival, so I can’t tell you how the Shadow Theatre production differs. But I was very pleased with this one – it is nuanced, affectionate, and wistful.

Running time is a bit under 2 hours – and just the length it needs to be. Tickets are available here, for the run continuing until November 6th.

Two samples of local history, the macabre and the hopeful

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Already this theatre season, several great productions have been seen on Edmonton stages.  The Colour Purple at the Citadel was a powerful tale of resilience, with really great music and an inspiring performance from Tara Jackson.  Silent Sky at Walterdale was based on the true story of early-20th-century astronomer Henrietta Leavitt.  Teatro closed their summer season with Vidalia, which was confusing and ridiculous and very entertaining.

This week I was able to watch two performances with local roots and seasonal resonances, and I enjoyed both.

Dead Centre of Town XII is this year’s version of Catch the Keys Productions’ annual exploration of historical horror by Megan Dart and Beth Dart. This one is set at Mellon Farm, the 1920s-era farm property at Fort Edmonton Park.  Attending the Hallowe’en event is one of your few chances to get a look at the Park while the renovations are continuing.   The horrifying stories out of local history feel more intimate this year, with an audience of only 25 for each performance encountering the characters in the farmhouse and yard.   Fans of previous Dead Centre of Town shows will recognize the hench/guides played by Colin Matty, Christine Lesiak, and Adam Keefe.  Other characters and stories are unique to this year’s production, and there are other surprising and disturbing design elements.  Dead Centre of Town XII plays until November 1st, tickets here.  Wednesdays through Saturdays it’s part of the bigger Hallowe’en event Dark, and Tuesdays and Sundays you can experience it on its own.

I could tell you a lot more about it, but not without spoiling things – and in Dead Centre of Town, it’s better when unexpected.

E-Day, by Jason Chinn, opens tomorrow at Roxy on Gateway, a Roxy Performance Series offering by Serial Collective.  I got to see a preview show last night.  I try not to review previews because it seems not-quite-fair, but my calendar is quite busy this month and last night was my chance.

I loved it.  And I cried.  It was a little like Kat Sandler’s The Candidate / The Party, which were large-scale views of behind-the-political-scenes of a national leadership campaign and election.  But it was more like 10 out of 12 by Anne Washburn, the peek into technical-rehearsal week at a theatre company which Theatre Network produced a few years ago.    And for me it was … you know how Badlands Passion Play has the huge advantage of starting out with an evocative plot and characters that most of the audience not only knows but cares passionately about? Like, when I arrived on site, before I found my seat I looked around at the hills and saw the three crosses, and it took my breath away because I knew what was coming and it was going to be right there.  Yeah, like that.

E-Day takes place during the 2015 provincial election campaign, from E-28 to E+1.  The whole play is set in a campaign office for a local candidate, Candace Berlinguette (all the characters are named after the performers), who was unsuccessful in the 2012 election.  With credit to set/costume designer Beyata Hackborn, it looked like any campaign office I’ve visited or volunteered in.  The table of donated food, the phone bank of mismatched phones, the signs on the fridge, the beautiful coded maps,  the coloured floor tiles and alphabet squares left over from the daycare previously in the space.  Audience was seated on all four sides, and there was always lots to watch – the office manager in the corner (Amena Shehab), the teenagers on the phones (Asia Bowman and Shingai David Madawo), the comings and goings out the various doors and the mission-control of the voter contact organizer (Sheldon Elter) and his assistant (Kiana Woo).   As in The Candidate/The Party, the candidate has a same-sex partner who has limited patience for the compromises of politics (Beth Graham).

What I loved about this play was twofold.  First, the specifics felt so right.  I had been a little disappointed in the Kat Sandler scripts being about an imaginary electoral system that resembled the American one, because I felt hungry to find humour and hope within our own Canadian system that I work within.  (Like Michael Healey’s Proud, with its slightly-different-outcome of a real election, and the Parliamentary seating diagram with the red, blue, orange, and pale-blue post-its).   But this one was so believable and so local in scope – everything I knew about election volunteering, about identifying supporters and pulling the vote, about why people volunteer and who runs a campaign – it all fit.

And in E-Day, it all mattered.   Characters remind each other that the hard work and insight from the previous election loss are helping them run this campaign, and when they despair of winning this one, they repeat that every supporter gained this time makes things easier next time. Plot details are consistent with this.  And in the middle of the discouragement, someone with a laptop whoops and they cluster around to the voiceover and music of the announcement that their party will be forming the government.  And that was the other thing I loved – the message of long-term hope, that whether or not any particular campaign goes the way you want, it’s all worth it in the long term.   And this week, I appreciated getting those reminders.  They made me cry.

Dead Centre of Town tickets are here.  Many of their shows sell out, so get yours early.

E-Day tickets are here.

I’m off to Banff for the Community Theatre Summit, which I’m sure will inspire me with theatre ideas and make me a better artist and board member.  And when I come back, I want to see Baroness Bianka’s Bloodsongs, and Fight Night, and The Roommate, all opening soon on local stages.