A ‘CHILLING’ THRILLER
The Drowning Girls at Vertigo
Denise Clark calls The Drowning Girls, the creepy thriller she is co-directing with Blake Brooker for Vertigo Theatre, the little fringe show that could and did.
The Drowning Girls was created by Beth Graham, Daniela Vlaskalic and Charlie Thomlinson for the 1999 Edmonton Fringe Festival.
The trio were invited to work on an expanded version of the show for the 2008 Alberta Theatre Projects playRites Festival and then, as Clark recalls, “it zoomed all over the country.
“Everyone wanted to present the show or to get in on the tour of the original ATP production. It then went to Australia, New Zealand and all over the United States. Sadly, murder doesn’t go out of fashion, so The Drowning Girls never seems outdated,” says Clark.
The Drowning Girls is based on the sordid crimes of serial killer George Joseph Smith who would woo, court, marry and then murder vulnerable young women. He was tried and hanged for three murders, but it’s likely there were more that went unreported.
“The Drowning Girls takes place in 1915, which, to put it in perspective, was three years after the Stampede was born,” says Brooker, explaining “there were so few opportunities for women back then and marriage was the most desirable. George was a real con artist. He would make these women fall in love with him, sign over their estates, marry them and then drown them in their bathtubs.”
Clark adds that the real tragedy was that “these were young, vulnerable women who wanted so much to be loved. In their eyes, his offer of love and marriage was such a great offer.”
Both Clark and Brooker stress that The Drowning Girls “is far from being a period piece.
“Consider all the current missing and murdered women and it’s as if these three women are speaking out for them from their graves,” says Clark, adding “these ghosts are 104 years old but they are living as much in our world as in their own and in all those times in between.”
Brooker says the play has a bit of a Groundhog Day feel to it.
“These ghosts wake up every morning and have to tell their story to new listeners and then go back to sleep in their watery graves to wait for the next morning and the next.”
Clark is quick to point out that while the play may have a macabre premise, “it’s a great deal of fun because there is a lot of comedy in it and it has real vaudeville feel to it.”
Brooker promises this new version will be quite different from the one Calgarians got to see almost a decade ago.
“We’ve tried to give it a real noir feel.”
Clark says The Drowning Girls is not so much a whodunit but a how-did-he-do-it.
“We get to hear things in George’s own words because the girls read the letters he sent them. It’s really chilling.”
The hapless trio in Vertigo Theatre’s The Drowning Girls are played by Donna Soares, Jamie Konchak and Jamie Tognazzini.
Scott Reid has designed the eerie watery set.