Meegan Sweet,, Sophie May Healey, Julia Van Dam in Caw CAW!, one of The Doorstep Plays, Theatre Yes. Photo by Mat Simpson.
By Liz Nicholls, .ca
The ancient contract between The People and The Theatre gets an intriguing clause, and the personal touch, in the latest venture by the ever-adventurous Theatre Yes.
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With The Doorstep Plays, they bring the theatre to you homegrown: new Canadian plays, three of them, by emerging Edmonton playwrights. Curtain time happens right in your own backyard — on your lawn, on your deck, next to your shrubbery of choice. All you have to do, besides invite your friends (or not), is stay home, and pull up a lawn chair. And theatre will come to you, in this original outreach initiative by Theatre Yes producer Monica Gate.
Which is what we got the chance to do one afternoon this past weekend. We saw a trio of young actors — Meegan Sweet, Sophie May Healey, Julia Van Dam — dig into three different roles in three very different 20-minute plays, especially conceived for planting in back yards by three up-and-coming playwrights. They’re threaded together artfully by director Brett Dahl so they slide into each other, with minimal props edited for the great outdoors: a planter, a little tent, an axe, a portable barbecue, backpacks.
Common to the three short plays, different though they are, is the idea of hidden relationships, secrets revealed gradually and without exposition — not easy, to say the least, in a 20-minute play. It’s a challenging assignment, both in the writing and the acting. And I don’t want to spoil your fun in discovery, so a little vagueness from me is required.
In the opener, Caw CAW! by Mhairi Berg, three girls are out camping. And you gather, from the banter-with-edges, that they’re not friends exactly, but joined in an expedition designed to exact responsibility from a guy who’s fed each of them a line of male bullshit. Is it re-education? Revenge? The leader, the one with the playbook (Sweet), attends to the plan, briskly and with a measure of sardonic exasperation. And the tension between girl solidarity and traumatic personal experience causes stress fractures in the female expeditionary force.
Julia Van Dam and Sophie May Healey in Squirm, one of The Doorstep Plays, Theatre Yes. Photo by Mat Simpson
Autumn Strom’s mysterious Squirm starts with two girls (Healey and Van Dam) meeting n a garden. You wonder about their history; it’s an awkward reunion. And there’s a startling moment when the play takes a turn into the mythology of magical transformation.
The third, and funniest of the three pieces, is Sebastian Ley’s War!. It takes its title into a homeowner’s association meeting — along with the worldly insight that under the cheery cordiality of the ‘hood, the most inflammatory territorial impulses are tinder waiting for a match. That fire starter would be the arrival of a relative newcomer.
We’re at the meeting, ringside, and we get to vote. Times being what they are, it’s hard not to detect a whiff of topical political satire in this smart little play about power grabs, voter manipulation, domestic division, where every little thing from bird feeders to parking spots is a declaration of hostility. Van Dam has a riot as the beaming HOA president.
The cast, playwrights, and creative team of The Doorstep Plays, Theatre Yes. Photo by Mat Simpson.
Theatre Yes has a history of taking theatre into unexpected places — a theatre loading dock, urban elevators, a warehouse, an alternative music venue, the basement of a downtown building none of us had heard of before. And now … your place. In addition to bringing theatre to you on location, The Doorstep Plays is an original venture into showcasing emerging Edmonton playwrights, in a way that’s close at hand. All three plays are neatly configured by dexterous playwrights, and eminently discussable.
The BYOV (be-your-own-venue) experience can be yours, for a flat fee ($150). You can handpick the guest list: as many or as few friends, relatives, cohorts as you like. And hey, you could meet your own neighbours.
REVIEW
The Doorstep Plays
Theatre: Theatre Yes
Written by: Mhairi Berg, Sebastian Ley, Autumn Strom
Mentor and dramaturg: Monica Gate and Beth Graham
Produced by: Monica Gate
Directed by: Brett Dahl
Starring: Sophie May Healey, Meegan Sweet, Julia Van Dam
Where: your backyard
Running: May 20 to June 1
Further information and full schedule: theatreyes.com
Booking: email producer @theatreyes.com
