Everybody likes a good ghost story right? Figures jumping out of the darkness then disappearing, sounds of voices whispering in the night. It’s all supposed to make your skin crawl because it’s definitely scary. If you’re into those kinds of stories, then Vertigo Theatre’s The Huron Bride is right up your alley
The play opens to an American archeologist who has been asked by Vertigo to speak before each show to give the audience some context and to do a smudging ceremony. And to protect us, if she can. We then meet Rebecca Jessup (Jamie Konchak) who is curtly welcoming Hazel Sheehan (Georgina Beaty) who just came from Ireland because her cousin James Glynn (Nathan Schmidt) has offered her a job on the sawmill. She stays in the mill and James makes sure that the worker Alexandre (Graham Percy) locks it every night. Soon, Rebecca tells her of James’ first wife and the little girl Lyca (Leanne Govier) seems to know something that tale.
It’s a set up that sets off alarm bells. A woman staying alone in a mill, with no one else around, except the howling voices in the night. Cory Sincennes created a creepy set, complete with an ever moving wheel in the corner. His lighting design coupled with Matthew Waddell’s sound design allows the play to dive into horror. But does it have to be dark all the time? Most of the scenes were shrouded in darkness.
But the play stalls at that point. It is revealed that James’s wife died tragically and the narrative dwindles from there. The play also depicts the Huron (Wendat) First Nations People as the misunderstood ‘other’. Their beliefs that the spirit remains is mocked in the play and doesn’t go deeper into those beliefs.
Beaty’s Irish accent fades in and out and her performance is adequate. Konchak injects some much needed comic relief when she talks about marriage and religion. Percy’s Quebecois accent is more constant, but also fades at times.
The Huron Bride is a creepy horror story. But it lacks any depth and after shocking the audience the first couple times, it turns out to be the only thing that the play does.
Vertigo Theatre’s The Huron Bride plays until Febuary 23rd. Tickets and more information are available online.
Photo Credit: Benjamin Laird
Related Posts
The Apology is an Exhausting Soap Opera In 1816 Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein and her lover, the poet Percy Shelley, spent a summer with poet Lord Byron, John William Polidori and Mary's sister in law, Claire Clairmont near Ge...
Vertigo Theatre’s ‘In the Heat of the Night’ sizzles Tension runs high in Vertigo Theatre's In the Heat of the Night. Specifically racial tension. Set in Argo, Alabama in 1962, the play, based on the novel by John Ball explores the story of a murder ...
‘Panic’ is fascinated with Hitchcock. Vertigo Theatre's Panic is a play written by Joseph Goodrich, who is fascinated by the classic mystery genre. It's a play that is a homage to the great Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock.
The...
Blood reigns down in ‘Titus Andronicus’ Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus is one of the bard's earliest tragedies. It's filled with revenge, rape, and murder. And blood was everywhere at The Shakespeare Company, Ground Zero Theatre and Hit ...
Getting Down with Eric Rose: Chatting about The Kite Runner Theatre Calgary has been given the opportunity to present the Canadian premiere of a stage adaptation of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and director Eric Rose has been dealing with the question:...
| Tweet |
|
