The Stratford Theatre Review: Here For Now Theatre’s Stick Around
By Ross
She studies herself, deep into the mirror in the first few telling moments of Here For Now Theatre‘s auspicious world premiere of Stick Around, examining her birthday body in the way we all do, wondering if we are still holding on to aspects of our younger selves, and whether we can let it go or not. It wiggles too much, Rachel decides, before turning around to check out her body from the back. It isn’t the butt (or is it bum? or tush?) she had in her early twenties, where most of this remembrance play unfolds, but it’s not too bad, she concludes, as she gestures to us to agree.
“I’m my mom’s butt” is the conclusion made in this touching new play by Rebecca Northan (Goblin:Macbeth), and as portrayed most authentically by Chantelle Han (Tarragon’s Post-Democracy), it digs in and expands on that emotional connection and dynamic that, at least for this reviewer, hits home (as I leave Stratford the following morning to go take care of my elderly parent). Played out inside its minimalist staging, thanks to the straightforward work of set designer Freddy Van Camp (Page One’s There Are No Gays in Chechnya), expert lighting designer Louise Guinand (Stratford’s Casey and Diana), clever costuming by Rebecca Chaikin (Assoc/Stratford’s Something Rotten!), and a solid sound design by Keith Thomas (Coal Mine’s Yerma), the story swings around and backwards, around a mom’s battle with cancer and her imminent death that will come within the next 6-8 weeks. The framing is set before them out of nowhere, this deadly diagnosis, after a biopsy of a lump on her rib reveals that it is just one of many malignant growths that have developed in different parts of her body. The news is delivered to the mother and daughter team carefully by her no-nonsense yet sympathetic doctor, portrayed beautifully by Eric Craig (Elgin’s The Last Timbit), who dons many different hats all “with the nice tush” descriptive pointed out, most deliciously by mother Marge, sharply played by Daniela Vlaskalic (The Theatre Department’s Pith!).
Craig is the sole male in the play, yet he plays an important supporting character in a play that is really about a woman who is about to turn 46 years old, looking back at her relationship with her mother, who died from cancer before turning the same age. “Where’s my 46-year-old living example?” she asks into the mirror, before Marge takes her spirited place behind her, helping Han’s Rachel look inward at what this all means, and how does she go forward into those uncharted territories without her mother’s guidance. Stick Around, as directed with clarity by Kevin Kruchkywich (Actor: “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days“), finds its way expertly in and around back to an engagement that is as unique as these two characters. It’s tender, intimate, and engaging, especially the more we get to know the mother, that is, Marge. “I don’t want to supersede her,” says Rachel with anxious earnest, as she unpacks all the grief and sadness that comes with the loss of a parent, especially one that engages in the unique formation that is Rachel and Marge.
Marge has a wicked sense of humor and a sharp, tough viewpoint that sits well inside her daughter. We get to know this strong woman, who doesn’t have time for feminist stances as she is busy working her way up the corporate ladder from secretary to CEO of a Roto-Rooter company in Calgary. She approaches life as a fun, creative bargaining game, working the system to always get a better deal, whether it’s on patio furniture or a coffin for herself. She works the system to her advantage, but cancer is one fiend that can not be bargained with, so she does what she can by taking control of the situation in her own particular way, with her favorite companion, her daughter, standing by her side, filling in the spaces with humor and care. It’s a compelling formula, bathed in intimate connection and plenty of morbid laughs from inside jokes between mother and daughter. The play is smart and honestly written by Northan, feeling very personal while also never getting too dark before some tender lightness is allowed to shine in, thanks to the cast of three working hard to create authenticity and connection.
Vlaskalic does a very fine job walking us through her decline with her sense of humor fully intact. We care for this woman, even though I never really believed she was a “bad ass smoker” from the way she ‘holds’ her cigarette. But beyond that pantomime, her condition and her connection radiate out uniquely in complicated tones of love and laughter. Her pet name for Rachel is “Brat”, which says a lot about their tender connection and level of acceptance, and Marge loves to comment on the rear end of each and every one of Craig’s embodiments. And Craig gives her lots to play with, literally and figuratively, unpacking characters that, although sometimes a bit too stereotypically drawn, give the piece plenty of flavors for Vlaskalic and Han to use and digest in layers of grief and loss between the two. “Grief makes you do strange things in bizarre ways,” we are told by Han’s Rachel, as she struggles to unpack her feelings of loss and abandonment by a mother she so clearly adored. I could have done without the abstract clutter of all those pieces of colored glass being laid out before us. The metaphor is unneeded and a bit too heavy for glassware and this play to take on, but overall, if you’re able, before or after one of the splasher Festival shows like Annie, Anne of Green Gables, or Macbeth, Here For Now Theatre delivers a smart and touching new work, Stick Around, that is a refreshing return to the basics of theatre and performance delivered expertly by a crew of pros.
During the Lawyer’s meeting with Marge and Rachel, we learn that Rachel will inherit Marge’s collection of over 1200 pieces of amethyst glassware of all sizes and varieties. During the course of the action, actors on entering or exiting will deposit a piece of amethyst glass somewhere on stage until, by the end, all the furniture surfaces on stage are covered with glassware. We can’t know whether this is a directorial ploy or whether it is part of the script, and its meaning is not entirely certain. My guess is that it is a symbol of Rachel’s awareness of all that she has inherited from her mother which only grows larger the closer Marge approaches her death.
Stick Around is a fine play to inaugurate Here For Now’s new black box theatre. A 56-seat theatre is the perfect venue for such an intimate play. Fortunately, in contrast to the other main theatre company in town, elaborate sets are not part of Here For Now’s aesthetic, though the black box interior does lend more importance to lighting, and with Louise Guinand as lighting designer, Kevin Kruchkywich has a master at the helm. Since, at least in its first season in the new theatre, Here For Now is not presenting plays in rep, if you want to see Stick Around, you don’t have very long to do so.
Any visitor to Here For Now will see the company as a necessary antidote to the often over-lavish productions presented by the Stratford Festival. By focussing on acting and clarity of storytelling, Here For Now comes closer to the essence of theatre and why the medium continues to move us.
Christopher Hoile
Photos: Daniela Vlaskalic as Marge, Chantelle Han as Rachel and Eric Craig as The Guy with the Nice Tush; Chantelle Han as Rachel and Daniela Vlaskalic as Marge. © 2025 Here For Now Theatre Company.
For tickets visit: www.herefornowtheatre.com.
