SummerWorks Web Report - August 11, 2002

Elsewhere on this site you can read all 43 of NOW's SummerWorks reviews. In next Thursday's print and electronic editions you can read our (mine and colleague Jon Kaplan's) annual wrap-up of the fest's outstanding new plays, productions, ensembles and performances, as well as find out the winner of the Audience Choice Award.

But here I'm singling out 10 of my personal favourite moments from this year's fest. These scenes – in some cases little more than a bit of staging or a line of dialogue – will stay with me long after the last set has been struck and the artists have gone on to other projects.

Note: by nature, this is a highly subjective list. And keep in mind that I'm writing this on my last day of fest-going. In a few hours, I'm catching up on several acclaimed works, such as Forms Of Devotion, Exhibit and The Mourning, which will boost my total-plays-seen number up to the mid-30s.

So, in no particular order, here are 10 (OK, 11, if you want to get picky) powerful SummerWorks moments:

1. In Something About A River, Part One: The Fire Sermon, the audience sits rather uncomfortably (what's that stain on the seat?) in a porn cinema, when Stephen O'Connell entices us (much as his character's enticed in the tale) down to a little valley at the foot of the screen to tell us a story about sexual awakening and secrets. It's a physical journey, but also a psychological trip into the depths of memory and pain.

2. In Going For Groceries, the daughter (Ruby Dallas), fed up with responsibilities and carrying the burden of her single mom's (Alison Lawrence) anxieties about the two of them, suddenly screams: "I'm 10 years old!" It's a moment both funny and poignant that captures so much with so little.

3. In Ma Jolie, a large frame sits unused through much of the play when suddenly the young Pablo Picasso (Michael Rubenfeld) gets inspiration from an Iberian sculpture (played by Yashoda Ranganathan), hauls out the frame and begins working on his famous Les Desmoiselles D'Avignon. Instead of using paints, though, writer/director Alan Dilworth has him wildly stringing colourful scarves across the frame, creating a suitably abstract and magical work before our eyes.

3. I loved everything about Keira Loughran's Little Dragon, but two moments surprised me with their ingenuity. When university friends Jen (Loughran) and Euge (Michelle Polak) go see the Bruce Lee biopic Dragon, they sit in the theatre as Richard Lee soars through the air, movie over. In about five seconds, we get a clear sense of place, two very different responses from the women, a silly visual cue (from the film's publicity image) that takes US back as well and the joy of watching someone fly through the air. Wow. The second surprising scene concerns what happens when people's energies don't mesh. When Jen's roommate Corey (Angela Besharah) meets Euge, yin doesn't meet yang. The result is hilarious to watch, and again works on lots of theatrical levels.

4. In Stories From The Rains Of Love And Death, Stewart Arnott plays a schoolteacher interrogating a student (Marlowe Heslin-Gardiner). Circling the boy like a predator, Arnott is angry but contained, his words masking feelings of lust and violence.

6. In The Crash Of Twenty-Nine, a wife (Christina Jol) recounts details from her husband's (Greg McGrade) life at age 15, 20, 25 and upwards (he's 29), and the bitter truths of these observations ring like a death knell for youthful dreams.

7. In Phae, Leanna Brodie's haunted, tragic mom stabs herself to take out "the ball of hard" in her chest, and the audience – after laughing at great Southernisms like "You can't run from blood, no matter how many times you change your hair" – simply gasps.

8. From the opening lines of Sean Reycraft's One Good Marriage That One, That One there's a feeling of suspense. It begins as tension between a bickering couple (Jeff Miller and Mary Francis Moore) but soon becomes something more sinister and darkly funny – the reason they're so on edge. We're told of deaths at a wedding ceremony, but are left wondering how those deaths occurred. Poison? Violence? When the answers are revealed, it's cathartic, as powerful for us as it is for the characters.

9. All the transitions in Theatre SKAM's multi-storied The Black Box are smoothly achieved, but the one that left me speechless was seeing the chalk outline of Icarus's (Camille Stubel) body becoming a plane that the Wright brothers (Lucas Myers and Matthew Payne) then try to navigate. Magical.

10. When Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman and Emily Sugerman, who have just spent a significant summer at the cottage, scoop up their belongings – clothes, razors, magazines, journals – and pack their bags near the conclusion of The End Of Pretending, it's a visual encapsulation of the play. They're almost through with pretending, with playing around and avoiding things, and are now about to embark on adulthood. A heartbreaking and honest moment in a play filled with them.