Funerary farce

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This article was published 15/10/2025 (289 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Portage Place is under construction, but Prairie Theatre Exchange is open for business.

Above the silenced food court, on the third floor of the downtown shopping mall, the regional theatre company is readying for its season-opening run of Liars at a Funeral, a zippy comedy from Toronto playwright Sophia Fabiilli about a memorial service that turns out to be an elaborate sham. Mavis (Mariam Bernstein) isn’t actually dead: she just figures the news might be the one thing powerful enough to unify the warring factions of her estranged family.

Not only is the matriarch alive and well, but any rumours of PTE’s hibernation during Portage Place’s $650-million redevelopment are exaggerated and unfactual.

Ann Hodges, the company’s artistic director, says that the box office is “much more in line” with pre-COVID figures, while season subscriptions, which cratered in 2020, are experiencing a significant rebound.

A year-over-year increase of 522 subscribers represented the largest growth in the company’s subscriber base since 2010, says Hodges, who took over the creative mantle from Thomas Morgan Jones in 2024.

While Hodges shepherded the Jones-programmed 2024-25 season, the upcoming year represents the longtime director’s first opportunity at programming her own PTE calendar.

Starting off with a funerary tale that tows the fine line between hard-earned laughter and relatable tears seemed like a fitting choice, says Hodges, who will also direct Fabiilli’s script.

Hodges says a few connections alerted her to the quality of Fabiilli’s work. Winnipegger Krista Jackson, now based in Montreal, had directed the first professional production of Liars (which premièred in Fringe form in 2017) at the rural Ontario Blyth Festival in 2023. The well-received run led to further stagings at Ontario’s Thousand Islands Playhouse and by Alberta Theatre Projects.

“I wrote my agent, who’s also Sophia’s agent and said, ‘Can you put me in contact?’ And Sophia sent me the play a year ago and I remember reading it and laughing out loud. I never do that when I’m reading a play. Usually it’s just sort of a chuckle inside,” says Hodges.

To bring the script to the stage in Winnipeg, Hodges said she wanted to cast a group of “crackerjack” actors who could handle its quick changes: the show’s five actors — Bernstein, Shannon Loewen, Monique Marcker, and father-son duo Cory and Mackenzie Wojcik — play a total of nine roles, including multiple sets of twins, who gather around an empty casket.

Rather than build a casket from scratch, PTE received a genuine container via donation from Cropo, the North Main funeral chapel.

While Hodges guesses most patrons will be able to relate to Fabiilli’s script’s mixture of dark and gentle humour, the director will pay special attention to feedback on Oct. 25, when a 21-person delegation from the Manitoba Funeral Service Association will be in the audience at the Cherry Karpyshin mainstage.

“They’re going to wear their uniforms and everything, and they’re planning to enter the theatre in a procession,” she says.

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca