Ellie Heath, Caley Suliak, Alyson Dicey in Weekend at Girlies, Girl Brain at Theatre Network. Photo by Brianne Jang, bbcollective photography
By Liz Nicholls, .ca
If the view from the collective snowbank is getting you down, your moment to escape is at hand.
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In their new holiday show Weekend at Girlies, opening Thursday in Theatre Network’s Phoenix Series, the hit sketch comedy trio Girl Brain proposes to take you away, to a Mexican all-inclusive.
“Yup, Girl Brain is going to Mexico for the holidays!” says Caley Suliak, post-rehearsal at the Roxy where she and her Girl Brain cohorts (and best friends) are busy cutting out cardboard palm trees for the set. “We all want to go on vacation. But we’re poor artists and we can’t afford to,” says Alyson Dicey. “So we decided to dream up a vacation of our own — onstage.” Says Ellie Heath, “for people who don’t get the opportunity to go, we’ll being the south to you!”
Remember those friends’ trips? Those shared hotels and Airbnbs? Those guys being jackasses in the pool? Girl Brain does. “The friends’ trip is a pretty familiar trope,” says Suliak, to sounds of knowing laughter from under the cardboard palm fronds. “Some of this draws on real-life experience,” says Dicey. “The way Caley’s suitcase just explodes in hotel rooms, piles of stuff everywhere, for example!”
Since their gig of origin, at Grindstone Comedy Theatre in 2018, the three Girl Brain-iacs have travelled together a lot, to destinations in which comedy festivals (Toronto, Philadelphia, Athabasca, Fairview AB. among them) figure prominently. Cities some distance north from Mexican all-inclusives, in short. But they have actually been south together, to the Orlando Sketch Festival in Florida. “An interesting experience,” says Heath, to general laughter. “We had the most fun by the pool.” And they’ve had first-hand input from the fourth member of the Girl Brain trio, Candice Stollery (their stage manager, “and also lighting designer, technical and moral support,” who’s just back from a Mexi-holiday in Cabot.
The Weekend at Girlies poster (Girl Brain photography, always funny, is by Brianne Jang) is a capture of Heath, Dicey and Suliak in guys-on-spring-break mode. The poster getting spoofed, explains Dicey, is Weekend at Bernie’s, a dumb 1989 flick with “one joke that carries through one whole movie and the sequel.” Old rich guy dies, and his corpse gets puppeted around by two young guys” on the make for his dough.
In the course of Weekend at Girlies, “we all play ourselves. Loosely,” says Heath. But there are also dude portraits, without which no all-inclusive resort experience would be complete. Suliak plays Bernie, “one of the boys who might get to hang out with Girl Brain,” says Dicey. “He’s one of those quintessential guys who are ‘hey I’m goin’ to Mexico, man; I have four brain cells and three of them are on vacation too’,” as Suliak describes.
Girl Brain, 2019: Ellie Heath, Caley Suliak, Alyson Dicey. Photo by Brianne Jang, bb ccollective photography
“I’ve just been dumped,” says Heath of one of her show characters. “And Alyson is Wingman Tracker who’s trying to find me a potential guy replacement to rebound with.” Ah yes, for their sketches Girl Brain has often tapped into a rich comic vein of dating-gone-wrong stories. “We are drawing from our vast life experience,” Heath laughs. “And we all love playing guys … dude characters that feel stereotypical, but ….” Suliak adds, “but still have some heart.”
Since all three are theatre artists by trade and training, they’re at pains, unsurprisingly, to find a through-line and arc for their sketch shows. Characters recur; situations are followed up scene to scene. “This the most complete through-line we’ve had,” says Heath. “The different characters who pass through the resort” are a natural reservoir of possibilities. Rapid Fire Theatre star Paul Blinov, a sketch writer himself of note, “has helped punch up the script,” sussing out “where the humour landed, and where it didn’t.”
“So it’s a whole show. But it’s also good for people with a short attention span,” laughs Dicey. “Each scene is only a minute or two long. There’s always that call-back, and you feel you already know those characters, and you feel smart!”
As usual with their shows, which have been at the Roxy since 2019, Weekend at Girlies includes “lots of singing; we love song parodies.” They plunder the ‘80s especially, since the show builds to a big New Year’s Eve 80s theme party. Says Heath, “hair metal, Madonna, power ballads. All very epic and theatrical!”
And, hey, the show concept gives Girl Brain the chance to showcase special guest stars as ‘resort entertainment’. Accordionist Tiff Hall is one, along with burlesque artist Vira Von Velvet, and drag artist Stretcher Hymen. Each Friday and Saturday of the run there are ‘Readings by Roro” tarot card readings (by donation) in the lobby. And the audience is invited to bring menstrual products to support No Period Without.
PREVIEW
Weekend At Girlies
Comedy troupe: Girl Brain
Written and performed by: Ellie Heath, Alyson Dicey, Caley Suliak
Where: Theatre Network at the Roxy, 10708 124 St.
Running: Thursday through Dec. 22
Tickets: theatrenetwork.ca
