Share the warmth, good humour
by Elissa Barnard, Arts Reporter, HeraldSinclair’s comedy rewarding in its realism
Two couples who never intended to meet are caught in the middle of a hurricane in Share, Nova Scotia playwright Carol Sinclair’s latest work, premiering at Ship’s Company Theatre and running to July 20. It stars, from left, Glenda Stirling as Mia, praying during the storm, Brian Heighton as her boyfriend Jake, Angela Vermeir as Kate and Jerry Etienne as her boyfriend Nigel. (TOM McCOAG / Amherst Bureau )
There was a groan of recognition in a Parrsboro audience when Nova Scotia playwright Carol Sinclair referred to the lost Headz Gamez plant.
It was a subtle reference in this new, wonderfully warm-hearted comedy about two mismatched couples trapped in a rustic seaside cabin during a hurricane.
The two-hour play, which opens the 2007 season at Ship’s Company Theatre, explodes in farcical, physical comedy, acrobatic wordplay and pithy observations. However, there is a serious undercurrent about the economic problems facing many a small Nova Scotia town today.
This takes an essentially light comedy deeper so that a line like "This is some kind of head game!" can resonate in a town where a board game plant was supposed to employ 1,500 people.
Most of all, though, Share is a great chance to see four comic actors, particularly the under-utilized Brian Heighton, at their best in a realistic play given a highly polished, fast-paced production by director Pamela Halstead and a great, realistic-looking cabin set by Corey Mullins.
(Some people might be bothered by herbal cigarettes standing in for dope and real cigarettes, though I actually didn’t smell them, and they add to the realism and expression of the characters’ tension.)
In Share, two urban couples have a stake or share in an old cabin in a part of rural Nova Scotia where schooners once buoyed a booming economy but where the only commodity today is peace and quiet.
Kate and Nigel are quirky, granola-eating scientists who are goofily in love and have come to Kate’s old childhood cabin to be alone. When they go out for a walk, in sweep Mia and Jake, a high-powered, business-oriented couple also desperate to shed their cellphones and be free from her job as manager at the casino in Halifax and his in advertising.
Doors open and close, candles get lit by one couple and blown out by the other, the pace quickens to a hilarious discovery of one another and then Hurricane Tessa strikes.
In the second act Sinclair archly takes the fine physical comedy of shaking walls, loud noises and frightened, madly dashing, angry people into the terrain of self-revelation, family drama and mystery.
The two couples struggle to share the basics like food (and liquor) and to find common ground within their radically different visions for the area’s cabins and land.
Kate and Nigel dream of a nudist camp with de-stressing sessions, Mia and Jake want to develop a dinosaur theme park with rides. Out of the chaos of the storm and conflict, a new order arises and there is a happy ending.
Apart from the laughs, Share is rewarding in its realism. Sinclair’s characters feel very real even when they are behaving extremely.
The actors have a fierce energy, sharp comic skills and deep commitment to the story. Jerry Etienne takes Nigel to comical, corny extremes in the beginning of the play but makes his somewhat idiotic character ultimately reasonable and likeable. Heighton registers both the bold strokes and minutia of comic acting in rapid-fire facial ticks and vocal expressions that make him a delight to watch.
The female characters are more the peacemakers but are also comic and played equally finely by Angela Vermeir, infusing vitality into Kate, a straightforward, natural, braver woman who feels strongly about life and love, and Glenda Stirling as Mia, a robust, fast-talking, guilt-free city girl who is terrified by the storm.
Ship’s Company Theatre is always good at design and taking a viewer thoroughly into another world. By the end of Share it’s hard to believe the cabin with its high beams, wood stove and old sofa-bed doesn’t actually exist.
Adding to Mullins’ cabin and the realism of the hurricane are Bruce MacLennan’s lighting design, Krista Levy’s costume design, sound design by Greg Simm and Krista Wells and walls actually shaken by an invisible crew that includes Nik Hynes and Yolande Laking and is led by Mullins, also head carpenter on his set.
Glenda Stirling choreographs the racing physical comedy in scenes that include all four on and under one bed. Technical director is Evan Brown, stage manager Tammy Faulkner and wardrobe head Tabatha Daigle.
Though a Nova Scotian audience will enjoy the many provincial references, Share’s themes are universal and the play is marked by warmth and good humour when it comes to solving big problems.
