Canadian families look to heal wounds
Two feel-good, sweet comedies examine offer up life lessons across generations
The fall theatre season is off to an auspicious start with two beautifully acted feelgood comedies about Canadian families finding ways to heal deeply painful wounds across generations.
In Daniel MacIvor’s Marion Bridge, three adult sisters come together in their Cape Breton family home as mother lies upstairs dying. Theresa (Nicola Cavendish), the responsible oldest, is a nun. Addicted to ridiculous soap operas, butch Louise (Beatrice Zeilinger) has always been, in Theresa’s word, “strange.”
While those two stayed close to home, kid sis Agnes (Lynda Boyd) went off to Toronto to be an actress. But her life has proven a devastating series of disappointments, so she drowns herself in drink and sarcasm. Central to her bitterness is a daughter, Joanie, she was forced to give up for adoption, for which she blames her mother.
Mother’s dying wish is that the sisters reconcile with their estranged father. Agnes becomes obsessed with recovering the now-adult Joanie, who has never known her. The play ends on an up-note with nothing resolved but everything in progress.
Roy Surette directs with a light touch, leaving the three veteran actors to build their rich characters and find the substantial comedy amid the crises. Boyd does a nice job keeping Agnes from falling into cliché. Zeilinger’s quirky, deadpan Louise is full of surprises. And Cavendish gives us a finely modulated Theresa, from an understated monologue on her struggles with faith to her very funny description of their father’s new Lolita of a wife.
Like Marion Bridge, Ins Choi’s Kim’s Convenience takes place on family soil, in the Toronto convenience store above which the Korean-Canadian Kim family lives. Kaitlin Williams’ fabulous Pacific Theatre production of the hit play that gave rise to the successful CBC-TV comedy is gut-bustingly funny with a huge heart.
At its centre is Mr. Kim, otherwise known as Appa (Korean for father), in an extraordinary performance by James Yi. He’s built a life for his family by doggedly working in the store (designed by Carolyn Rapanos). It’s suddenly worth a lot of money because of the condo developments gentrifying the neighbourhood.
Rather than sell to developers, Appa would like to keep the store in the family. But thoroughly modern, aspiring photographer daughter Janet (Jessie Liang) wants no part of it, and troubled son Jung (Lee Shorten) left home as a teenager after battling with Appa. Father and son haven’t spoken since, though deeply Christian Umma (mother in Korean, Maki Yi) sees him at church sometimes.
James Yi’s straight-faced Appa is utterly hilarious, especially in a series of scenes
with four different Black men, all played by the versatile Tré Cotten. In one segment, carefully written by Choi so as not to be racist, Appa confronts a shoplifter, giving Janet a lesson on who’s likely to “steal or no steal.” In another, he brokers the budding (and charming) relationship between Janet and Mike the cop.
The crux of this play, too, is the question of whether the estranged child can be restored to the damaged family. A couple of compelling scenes between Appa and his children suggest that even the stubbornest people can change.
Comedy may not be life, but we could do worse than pay attention to the life lessons these two sweet comedies set forth.