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The Ballad of Maria Marten – a woman who was more than a victim

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Eerie image of Ballad of Maria Marten cast. Photo Kendra Nordstrom

Before attending a preview of the Leduc Drama Society production of Beth Flintoff’s The Ballad of Maria Marten, I didn’t know very much about the play. I did know that it was based on a true story, and I was pretty sure the title character would die.

That’s not much of a spoiler, since very early in the performance the narrator (Emily Rutledge) introduces herself to the audience and explains that she sees things differently now that she’s dead – and it’s a relief. Now that she knows the truth, she knows that none of it was her fault, despite what “he” had been telling her. That was a fascinating viewpoint and I was curious to know more.

The character crumpled at the narrator’s feet turns out to be the younger/alive Maria (Sarah Gibson). And the company then takes us through the story of her life from about age 10 to her murder about 15 years later. I was reminded of other narrative conventions – like the way that After Mourning, Before Van Gogh uses two actors to portray different periods in the protagonist Joanna’s life, or the way that Our Town has the spirit of the dead girl walking through the community while the other characters go about their lives. I was repeatedly reminded of Tess (the Roman Polanski movie, as I’ve never tackled the Thomas Hardy book), because the title character often seemed doomed by her class and gender, penalized unfairly because she was a woman in poverty who dared to seek for survival and hope for love.

However, the playwright Beth Flintoff takes the known facts about Maria Marten’s life and death and shapes them into a compelling narrative of a likeable lively girl/woman with significant agency and female support – from her friendships with other girls (Marisa Scarbeau, Anglia Redding, Bethany Doerksen, Lee-Anna Semenyna) and allying with her new stepmother (Karen Huntley) to finally experience some childhood happiness now that she wasn’t responsible for keeping house. I was struck by the choice not to have her father be an on-stage character in the story – he seemed to be benign, but not relevant to Maria’s life and death the way her stepmother was. I was also impressed at the sex-positive threads woven through the storyline, especially through the character of Sarah (Scarbeau), sharing contraceptive folk-remedies with her friends and proud of her “bastard” children (delightful cameos from Willow Marshall and Cooper Marshall).

Michael Leoppky and Ryan Mattila play Maria’s various partners and the fathers of her children. There was nuance to these portrayals as well, even though none had much stage time.

Knowing that the title character dies, murdered by a man, I spent much of the first act wondering who, and then wondering why. A quick Wikipedia browse tells me that the case has been popular with true-crime fans ever since the original trial. In one of the most unsettling moments of the play, Rutledge’s spirit-of-Maria narrator confronts the audience directly about us coming in hopes of seeing the violent death.

But that’s not the story she chooses to tell/show. We do see the murderer on stage, but never hear him speak. We don’t see Maria’s death. We do see her friends and family struggling with whether and how to testify in the trial, and meeting to enact their own version of justice. There is another plot thread with a much more satisfying ending as well, leaving me with a sense of hope, a reminder that women supporting each other can make a difference, even in cultures of systemic oppression. Maria wasn’t saved, but she was vindicated, and others were saved.

Director Shawn Marshall has created a sensitive portrayal of these 19th-century characters, with glimpses of joy and humour and kindness. Costumes (Cyndi Wagner), props (Kendra Nordstrom) and the simple but haunting set and lights (Len Marshall builder) enhance the mood, hopeful and oppressive by turns.

The Ballad of Maria Marten plays tonight through Saturday night, and Saturday afternoon, at the Maclab Centre for the Performing Arts in Leduc (next to Leduc Composite High School), and then plays for one night at the Manluk Centre in Wetaskiwin on May 30. Tickets for this weekend’s run are available here. It’s disturbing and it’s uplifting, and it’s worth the drive.

Day Three – local artists, new stories

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It’s hard to find a connecting theme for the four productions I saw today, except that they were all done by familiar local artists.

Dick Piston Hotel Detective in Prague-Nosis was, as the title suggested, a classic noir tale with a hardboiled detective narrator (Lucas Anders), an assortment of suspicious characters (Mélissa Masse, Sarah Gibson, Dan Fessenden, Dave MacKay), and an atmospheric setting cleverly suggested by description, lighting, and a few set pieces moved around to suggest different locations in the seedy Lakeview Hotel. The published script, by American playwright/television writer Jeff Goode, offers scope for over-the-top humorous character portrayals but seems to have the consistent intricate plotting of a classic noir detective story. Director John Anderson has gathered a cast of clever character actors and talented crew, familiar from Walterdale Theatre productions. ASM Adorra Sergios displays title cards before each scene, in a series of increasingly strange hats. Playing in the Sugar Swing Ballroom (main floor) space, venue .

Rob and Chris / Bobby & Tina is an adaptation of one of my favourite plays ever, Collin Doyle’s Let the Light of Day Through. The playwright adapted it to a 60-minute musical format, along with composer/music-director Matt Graham. The original 2013 production of the play, with Jesse Gervais and Lora Brovold, portrayed the awkward affection and determination of a couple who experience an awful tragedy and … not get over it, but go on. The play is partly recollective, but they act out the stories to tell them to the audience, and it is very funny except when it’s awful. Part of the power of the original experience, for me, was not knowing what they were avoiding telling, until they told it. When I heard that Kate Ryan of Plain Janes would be directing a musical adaptation for the Fringe, I was excited, but also apprehensive. What if it wasn’t as good as I remembered the play? What if the experience depended on not knowing the outcome? But it is very good. It landed differently for me because I was watching for clues, but it was still powerful. The couple (Bobby + Tina when they meet as teenagers, Rob and Chris later) are played by Garett Ross and Jenny McKillop. They do just as well showing the awkward disconnects of a new relationship and a long-term one as they do showing the way that the couple develops a shorthand of shared understandings – the scene of trying to have a role-play fantasy when each of them thinks the other wants something else was hilarious, and the ways they imitate each other’s parents to amuse each other show clearly how they’ve been allied against both sets of parents for years. Graham’s music is suitably poignant and funny and affectionate, as called for, and the simple Fringe-appropriate set design (Trent Crosby) worked. Matt Graham plays the piano live. Venue 11, Varscona Theatre.

Mass Debating was also a musical and also at the Varscona. Trevor Schmidt wrote it and cast frequent collaborators Jason Hardwick, Cheryl Jamieson, Kristin Johnston, Michelle Todd, and Jake Tkaczyk, along with himself, to play junior-high-school debate team competitors. The universality and familiarity of the junior-high-aged themes (an early song focuses on each character’s worries of “Can they tell by looking?” ) were portrayed in a setting of mid-1970s Catholic schools, so the injustices were more overt and seemingly unchangeable than a contemporary context. Although the audiences know that things will get better, the characters really don’t. This dramatic irony provides not just humour but poignant compassion. Many of the unfairnesses focus on the institutional sexism of the society and that Church, and the way that both the boys (played by Jameson, Johnston, and Todd) and the girls (played by Tkaczyk, Hardwick, and Schmidt) express them in their interactions and behaviour. The thoughtless racism of the time was also shown in the segment where Ralph Washington, the Black competitor (Michelle Todd) was required to debate the Against side, on a resolution that racial integration has hurt Catholic education. Unlike Schmidt’s recent successful contemporary story about junior high school girls, Robot Girls, this one does not tie up the plot threads with happy endings. And it shouldn’t. That left me thinking. The music was written by Mason Snelgrove, and the accompaniment is recorded. Some of the announcer’s voice-overs were hard for me to hear clearly – not quite the Charlie-Brown-teacher “wah-wah-wah” but probably funnier than I knew about.

The drag comedy troupe Guys in Disguise have a new comedy, written by Darrin Hagen and Trevor Schmidt, called Microwave Coven. It’s also set in the 1970s, in a suburb, and it starts off with three neighbourhood women in fabulous caftans (Darrin Hagen, Jake Tkaczyk, Trevor Schmidt) preparing for a visit from neighbourhood newcomer Jason Hardwick. Hardwick is adorable as naive newlywed Mary Rose, in crinoline and blonde flip. The premise of this story is less realistic than the troupe’s recent productions like Crack in the Mirror and Puck Bunnies, but the characters are just as much fun. It’s also at the Varscona.