THE HOPE SLIDE by Joan MacLeod, directed by Nicole Arends, with Mary Krohnert and Siobhan Power. Presented by Slide Productions at the Tarragon Extra Space. July 6 at 4:30 pm, July 7 at 6 pm, July 8 at 9:30 pm, July 10 at 11 pm, July 11 at 3 pm, July 13 at 8 pm, July 15 at noon.

Joan Mhas a way with words and emotions that few Canadian playwrights can match. Her Chalmers Award-winning script The Hope Slide works at several narrative and theatrical levels to offer thoughts on death, rebellion, community and spirituality.That potent package drew director Nicole Arends to mount the show for the Fringe. Arends, artistic coordinator at YPT and assistant director on their show Ghost Train, has re-envisioned the tale of Irene Dickson, an actor touring a one-woman show about the Doukhobors, a Russian sect transplanted to western Canada who placed their own ideals above government demands.

In the original, one performer played Irene at 15 and at 37; Arends splits the figure between two actors and adds a strong movement component.

"I believe we are all part of one collective consciousness," offers the director, "and that each of us contains many voices. So the person Irene is at 15 isn't the same as Irene at 37.

The two "people" help each other, until by the end there's a sense of a mutual rescuing."

The piece touches on the meaning of hope, for both the passionate teenage truant Irene and the discontented adult Irene, who's dealing with a friend's AIDS-related death. MacLeod adds to the mix the Hope Slide, a 1965 mudslide disaster that buried a BC highway and killed four motorists, including a Doukhobor.

"The challenge in the piece is to express a "now' that has no dialogue," Arends explains. "Because so much of the play is like an interior dialogue with someone who never replies, our task is to provide the audience with a sense of theatrical give-and-take."JK