HAT opens its summer season.
Highland Arts Theatre summer season underway
The opener for the Highland Arts Theatre summer season (the first of four openings in just four nights) was Daniel MacIvor’s hugely popular “Marion Bridge,” directed by Todd Hiscock.
During the last two Highland Arts Theatre summer seasons, Hiscock also directed two equally Cape Breton-themed shows — “No Great Mischief,” based on the acclaimed Alistair MacLeod novel, and “Halo,” a fictional look at the famous apparition sighting at the Florence Tim Hortons.
For “Marion Bridge,” Hiscock chose a trio of actresses who brought a depth of experience from previous projects working together: Bonnie MacLeod, Jenna Lahey, and Lindsay Thompson.
Playing sisters finally coming to terms with growing up in a deeply fractured home by the impending death of their mother, each performance was thoughtfully crafted and directed. Their sister act didn’t seem like an onstage act — they looked and sounded like real siblings.
All were great, but MacLeod had one blisteringly emotive speech that blew the roof off of the theatre and earned the audience’s spontaneous applause.
Even if you have seen one of the previous two local productions of this play, this production and the performance of the three actors will reveal the insight and emotive depth of MacIvor’s writing.
“Tribe Of One,” the Highland Arts Theatre’s Friday night show written by Halifax playwright, Michael MacPhee, was an audience favourite at a recent Halifax Fringe Festival. After the Earth’s population hits 20 billion, “saner” heads decide to recruit empathy lacking psychopaths to make all the real tough ethical decisions that politicians are too conflicted
to make themselves. These “archons” are given strict mathematical formulae to follow and have no compunction about literally “executing” their final calculations.
The ever-versatile Hilary Scott gives a commanding performance as Del, a young and ruthless “archon” who delves too deeply into an old file. Scott’s performance captures Del’s charm, intelligence, arrogance, and cold killer instinct. As she moves towards something like a friendship with her new assistant, Na’vi, Scott subtly shades in Del’s humanity (or what there is of it).
Aiding her are equally fine performances from Andrew Gouthro (Na’vi), Chris Corbett (as Max, Del’s equally psychopathic mentor), Sarah Blanchard (Andreas, nervous bureaucrat with a secret) and Diana MacKinnon-Furlong as Del’s mother.
Tayves Fiddis’ smart direction was coolly underscored by Tristan Barlett’s set design, Ken Heaton’s lighting design, and MacKinnon-Furlong’s costume design. Their combined efforts (along with MacPhee’s future speak) gave the production the look of a “soft” fascistic society: like a Leni Riefenstahl film produced by the Disney studios.
“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” the Highland Arts Theatre’s Saturday evening show, had its audience laughing from the get-go and cheering and applauding at its finale.
The show, with music and lyrics by William Finn, book by Rachel Sheinkin, and directed by Ron Jenkins, delivers exactly what’s in its title: a local spelling be with all the humour, heartache, humiliation and horror that only young adults can experience all set to a bouncy
song score. It even delivers the actual tension of a real spelling bee by recruiting some willing audience volunteers to test their spelling talents.
The nine-person ensemble cast (and I wish I had the space to name them individually) gave top-level performance (some of them taking on multiple characters) under Jenkins’ nimble direction. The musical direction by Chris Mounteer (he also led the pit orchestra) made a difficult score toe-tapping and compelling.
I’m saving “Dream: A 1950’s Midsummer Musical” for later in the summer. To say this show is an audience favourite might be an understatement: during Highland Arts Theatre artistic director Wesley Colford’s welcoming speech before the show, just at his mention of “Dream,” the audience applauded. So there. Ken Chisholm lives in Sydney and has written plays, songs, reviews, magazine articles. He can be reached at thecenterisle@gmail.com.