Marries big laughs and chaos
THEATRE THE WEDDING PARTY
By Kristen Thomson. Directed by Ann Hodges. An Arts Club Theatre Company production, in partnership with Prairie Theatre Exchange. At the Goldcorp Stage at the BMO Theatre Centre on Wednesday, March 4. Continues until March 22
➧ THE UNDERLYING CHAOS of a wedding is in the tension of families forced together because two people fall for each other and decide to celebrate their union with a legally binding contract. In other words, it’s the perfect setting for a comedy— particularly one about class warfare, love, and familial dysfunction.
Toronto playwright Kristen Thomson mines this territory reasonably well in The Wedding Party, which features a sprawling cast of characters, but only six actors, meaning each cast member is playing multiple roles. In a smart move, Sherry and Jack Jr., the wedded couple, are only mentioned and seen in shadow or from behind in video projections. We find out three things immediately: Sherry and Jack Jr. had a whirlwind romance; Jack Jr.’s family is very rich and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on this wedding; and secretly Jack Sr. (Todd Thomson) is not thrilled about the match. He believes Sherry and her family are beneath him, even as he’s cracking jokes about the size of his new daughter-in-law’s breasts and trying to put on a show of how worldly he is, particularly compared to Maddy (Jane Spidell), Sherry’s mom, whose insecurities and “big mouth” are exacerbated by her fondness for alcohol.
When Maddy overhears Jack Sr. trash-talking Sherry, the façade of politeness crumbles and they go head-to-head. High jinks ensue when Tony, Jack Sr.’s long-estranged identical twin, shows up. Tony and Maddy bond and flirt, and Jack Sr.’s wife, Margaret (Luisa Jojic), can’t tell the brothers apart. Conflicts escalate and reach a fever pitch when Sherry and Jack Jr. take off and the wedding party is left to deal with the fact that they’ve maybe ruined the couple’s day.
The entire cast works well together, and each actor has at least one moment in which they get to really earn the spotlight, but the standout is Jane Spidell as Maddy. Drunk, single, working-class mother of the bride could be a mess of stereotypes in another actor’s hands, but Spidell brings the necessary nuance and humanity, transforming Maddy into a complex, fierce, funny, and sympathetic character.
There are a lot of laugh-out-loud moments throughout The Wedding Party, but the play is not as comedically sharp as it could be. Some of the jokes are so old and tired that they feel like relics of a different era, whereas other scenes are so absurdist and clever that they’re a total delight. With so much going on, the pace needs to be brisk, and slightly tighter direction could make the farcical elements feel fresher. But thanks to some inspired performances and genuinely hilarious moments, The Wedding Party mostly lives up to its name.
INHERITANCE: A PICK-THEPATH EXPERIENCE
Created by Daniel Arnold, Darrell Dennis, and Medina Hahn. Directed by Herbie Barnes. A Touchstone Theatre and Alley Theatre production, in association with Vancouver Moving Theatre and in community partnership with the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre. At the Annex Theatre on Thursday, March 5. Continues to March 15
➧ WHAT WOULD YOU do if an Indigenous nation laid claim to the land your family cabin—your “inheritance”—sits on? Would you split the territory 50-50? Hand it all over? Tell them to get off “your” property?
Daniel Arnold, Darrell Dennis, and Medina Hahn’s creatively ambitious new interactive production actually invites you to answer those and other questions—anonymously—and your responses will help shape the course of the story. The real question is, though: will you be honest, or choose what you perceive to be the right, progressive course of action? In its investigation of unceded land, Inheritance: a pick-the-path experience makes you consider your own actions and responsibility as our nation negotiates reconciliation and justice.
That may be one of the biggest achievements in what is also a pretty fun idea. When audience members enter either side of the traverse stage area, they find clickers on their seats. At certain segments of the show, they’re given the chance to vote by multiple choice on the route the play should take. The onus this puts on the actors, with about 50 possible pathways, is mind-boggling, but the cast rides the shifts with apparent ease.
Sometimes the questions are simple—our first assignment is to choose the music that opens the show (will that be the Clash or A Tribe Called Red?)—sometimes they are funny (one selection reads “Keep that shit to yourself ”), and sometimes they tread into more political questions about property rights in our postcolonial world.
The show gets off to a strong and engaging start, with urbanites Abbey (Hahn) and Noah (Arnold) disembarking from a boat to visit her father at the remote rural cabin that’s been in the family for years. But when they arrive, they only find Frank (Dennis), a local Indigenous man, staying there instead.
Dennis is adept at creating a character who can by turns seem sinister or harmless, mixing humour with more cutting gibes at the couple’s privilege—say, Noah’s fear of bears. Over time, he reveals himself an astute, politicized thinker, one with a sardonic bent; listen to the way he laughs when Noah talks about the progress of reconciliation.
Things feel a little stretched when it’s revealed that Abbey’s father has set up a sort of scavenger hunt for the land’s deed. A hunting gun comes into play, and Dennis starts to list off a lot of facts about land claims and history. The book Unsettling Canada takes a role, and it seems to have inspired a lot of the writing, too. The fact that the non-Indigenous population hogs 99.8 percent of the land in this country, and the way that links to dependency and poverty, forms the basis of Frank’s argument— timely information to emphasize in this province right now.
Those informational bits make the plot bog down a bit near the end, even with the fun facts (the definition of “unceded”, say) that pop up occasionally on the show’s two big screens.
Those projections also tally our votes, as well as showcase coolly expressive cabin sketches, map illustrations, and other imagery by Sammy Chien, Shang-Han Chien, and their artists’ collective Chimerik.
Set designer Lauchlin Johnston conjures additional visual interest with a zigzaggy stage that looks like a deconstructed 3-D map sprouting sawed-off tree stumps.
Dennis and Arnold’s characters develop a rich dynamic, the liberalminded Noah trying to bro it up hilariously with the acerbic stranger. And the script cleverly digs into ideas of entitlement, liberalism, and privilege. At one point, Abbey and Noah try to argue they deserve the land because they’re pinched by the skyhigh costs of real estate (presumably Vancouver’s)—as if that would compare to centuries of mistreatment.
The play might have garnered even more layers of debate by emphasizing Hahn’s own immigrant past in a stronger way. And some of its late-stage historic explanation could have been tightened up. All of this should be qualified, however, by the fact that the show changes drastically each night due to audience choices; word of mouth is that it can be by turns lighter and funnier or more of an action-thriller.
Still, the creative team is definitely onto something here, using a lively mix of humour and interactive technology to work through heavy concepts. Viewers go out into the night with the knowledge that land issues will never be solved with an easy click of the button. And more importantly, with plenty to think about their own role in the matter.