Playwright has ‘a special love’ for The Blue Hour
Festival celebrating women’s work in the arts showcases The Blue Hour
As a playwright, Edmonton’s Michelle Vance Hehir has learned to live on hope.
Now, as her largest production to date — The Blue Hour — arrives at the Westbury as the main stage production of Skirtsafire 2020, it feels like magic has taken over.
“You dream that it will happen,” she says of the multi-year process behind The Blue Hour. “I’ve got plays that are (still) in the drawer. But I have a special love for The Blue Hour.”
What began as a monologue at the Citadel Playwrights Forum turned, over two years and dozens of drafts, into a full-on, two-act play that, in 2017, won the Alberta Playwrights’ Network prize. Later, Skirtsafire Festival artistic director Annette Loiselle, familiar with Vance Hehir’s numerous Fringe plays and her work in an earlier Skirtsafire Festival, approached the playwright about presenting The Blue Hour as the festival’s feature work for 2020.
Vance Hehir couldn’t be more thrilled.
“You never think ‘I’ve reached the pinnacle,’” she says of her dogged persistence as a writer of plays about life in small towns. “I love the theatre, so I just keep doing it. It’s exhilarating.”
The Blue Hour, a robust production featuring seven actors and a hefty production team with an intimacy director, explores life through the eyes of 15-year-old Bonnie and her 14-year-old brother, Jonah. They are raised by single mother Christina in a strict Pentecostal home.
The family is poor, with few options. But Bonnie has a beautiful singing voice, and her mother sees this talent as a ticket out of misery. Christina arranges a meeting with the new preacher in town, hoping Bonnie will sing at an upcoming revival. The preacher and Bonnie develop a secret relationship, with devastating results.
In the foreground of the play is the relationship between Bonnie and Jonah, one that’s “very funny and heartfelt,” says Vance Hehir. The play also features Edmonton favourite Robert Bencz as a loving father figure to the young people.
“It’s a difficult play, but it’s funny, too, in same way that life is both amusing and tragic,” says Vance Hehir.
“These horrible things happen to us but we still laugh and joke and listen to music and talk to our friends and love our families. We keep on going.”
Annette Loiselle, who is directing the play, says while child sexual assault is a theme, The Blue Hour is nuanced in its portrayal of the characters.
“It’s not black and white, it’s not good versus evil,” says Loiselle. “The pastor is not a monster, and we get swept up in the relationship between he and Bonnie. We see good people making bad choices and for me, it’s such a play for our time.
“This is our world, it’s what we live with ... I feel it’s such a relevant show right now.”
Some of the issues raised in The Blue Hour will be the subject of a panel discussion after the matinee performance on Sunday, March 1. The panel has representatives from the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton; CASA Child, Adolescent and Family Mental Health; the John Howard Society; and a retired judge.
Although The Blue Hour is a major investment for the $200,000 Skirtsafire — a celebration of women’s work in the arts — it’s but one of the attractions of this burgeoning festival, now in its eighth year and running Feb. 27 to March 8.
Loiselle hopes that by expanding and shifting some elements of the festival from its roots on Alberta Avenue into downtown and Old Strathcona, more participants will be encouraged to check out the offerings.
New on the downtown front is the festival’s move to Station On Jasper for all cabaret and band performances, including the A-line
Variety show on opening night, “an explosion of dance, singer-songwriters and bands, to give people a spattering of what to expect from the rest of the shows,” says Loiselle.
Station On Jasper also hosts two brunch events. One is March 7 with Girlz with guitarz (who play for donations while you nosh). A second, $50 ticketed event coincides with International Women’s Day on March 8.
Also in the downtown area are performances at The Nook Cafe, The Carrot, and the popular sausage-slinging Otto restaurant, where The Key of She showcases emerging female singer/ songwriters, spoken word poets, and flamenco dancers at various times.
Alberta Avenue is still a hub for Skirtsafire, with the Nina Haggerty Centre hosting a range of engaging entertainment, much of it by donation. There is everything from yoga and dance workshops, to a 40-minute adaptation of Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida by the Tiger’s Hearts Collective — with its all-female company hanging around afterwards for a post-show discussion about women on stage.
Another key location for the festival on Alberta Avenue is St. Faith’s church, featuring The Beat of Her Drum (with percussion by local and international communities) and Songs In The Sanctuary. Visit skirtsafire.com for a complete listing of events and activities.