Theatre review

Play challenges audiences as it moves through 35 vignettes.

Why does it matter that an individual or community tells itself soothing lies as it copes with mass death brought on by war or disease?

Kevin Kerr’s award winning play, Unity (1918), which had its Cape Breton debut Thursday at the Boardmore Playhouse, explores this question by portraying the impact of pervasive death on the small Saskatchewan town of Unity.

It is 1918 and Unity has lost many of its young men in the First World War (1914-18). Then, just as the war is ending, Unity is further decimated by the Spanish Flu. (In Canada, the disease killed, in a matter of months, at least 50,000 Canadians, about the same number of Canadians who died in combat during the whole of the War). We see in particular how these events affect three sisters who live in Unity.

The audience must absorb what these women experience, and that is not easy. As well, the play is theatrically challenging, moving through thirty-five vignettes. Todd Hiscock takes this difficult script, and brings it to life in a way that both provokes thought and entertains.

The play introduces us to the three sisters, Bea, Sissy and Mary ( played with conviction and aplomb by Shealyn Varnes, Bhreagh MacNeil, and Jami Michalik).

By following the emotional upheavals of these women, Kerr forces the audience to strip away the usual defences humans use to hide the stark reality of disease and death.

Bea overflows with the romantic rhetoric of war. But a blind sol- dier, returned from the battlefield, debunks Bea’s fantasies of heroism and bravery.

Mary is full of sweet goodwill, looking after her fiancé’s parents. But her fiancée is killed, and Mary herself dies of the flu (as does Bea).

Sissy, whose teenage erotic exuberance is a highlight of the play, is driven to half-mad apocalyptic visions and dangerous acts, when her boyfriend falls to the disease.

In a climactic scene, in which the stage lights shine back on the audience, the play suggests that humans must face in a clear hard light the reality of death, bereft of the fantasies or hopes by which most people live.

In spite its stark message, the play offers ample pleasures including Bruce Cathcart’s inventive set and Ken Heaton’s effective lighting. Julian Kytasty’s musical accompaniment on the Ukranian bandura adds a haunting and unifying background to the story.

That this complex production works so well is a testament to Todd Hiscock, who by now must count as one of Nova Scotia’s premiere directors.

Unity (1918) continues through to December 1st.