Lost purpose, passion in poetic pandemic play

Once upon a time, not that long ago, as lives locked down and loneliness prevailed because of the global pandemic, many creative works of expression were birthed as a way to process, understand and survive.

One of those is Gather, co-written by Julia Lederer and Julie Ritchey, that uses the metaphor of a snowstorm to explore the hard-hitting impact of COVID-19.

The 65-minute production, directed by Manitoba Theatre for Young People artistic director Pablo Felices-Luna, officially inaugurated Manitoba Theatre for Young People’s intimate Richardson Studio Theatre. It boasts flawless sightlines — no audience member is further than two rows away from the stage area — with the Saturday matinee’s theatre-in-the-round setting ideally suited for up-close-and-personal storytelling.

Originally commissioned/premiered by Chicago’s Filament Theatre as its first post-lockdown production in 2022, MTYP’s Canadian première features Winnipeg-based actors Sarah Flynn as “One” (she’s also MTYP’s artistic associate) and Rhea Rodych-Rasidescu as “Two.”

Both actors bring a genuine warmth radiant enough to melt any snowbank as they narrate a series of stories about “the town where we live” that becomes ice-locked during a freak May snowstorm.

Costume/sets/prop designer Ksenia Broda-Milian creates nifty miniatures of its buildings, set on modular pieces that strategically break apart; Scott Henderson’s lighting is complemented by composer/sound designer Cuinn Joseph’s effective score.

We hear about the librarian who has lost her words and thus self-expression; a chef grieving his much-missed customers; and a mail carrier bereft of the “mystery” of the letters delivered faithfully to neighbourhood residents.

All have lost their purpose and passion in life — a wholly relatable plight that not even an ocean of sourdough starters could solve.

There’s plenty of audience participation, with Flynn and Rodych-Rasidescu engaging even the youngest tots with kindness and gentleness that builds trust. Individual kids are invited onstage to help flesh out the story as the tales’s trio of protagonists; they are fed lines by the actors to propel the narrative forward (these should be repeated to ensure every word is heard clearly).

The prose itself is deliciously imagistic, its poetic sensibility — including snippets from Mary Oliver’s inspiring ode Wild Geese and haiku verses — underscoring the allegorical play’s fantastical nature.

However, it also risks succumbing to an avalanche of wordiness — always a prickly problem with any third-person narration — despite Flynn and Rodych-Rasidescu’s animated delivery style.

The relationship between the two BFFs — their generic character names creating universality while also (ironically) distancing them by impersonality — should be emotionally cemented earlier in the play. We need to feel their close-knit bond while the sun is still shining, so that the loss of that relationship, by contrast, hits harder as winds howl and streets plug with snow.

One of the most powerfully moving scenes comes as the librarian, brought to life by one of the audience’s grown-ups, sits silently with a child onstage holding a lantern, whose name tag simply reads “loneliness.” Her learning how to embrace, or more chillingly, “growing accustomed” to the cold reality of social isolation speaks to those dark pandemic years that can never be forgotten.

Other potent truths are also unburied as spring returns, as when “One” says, “I had forgotten the world, so it had forgotten me.” Likewise, “Two” admits she had become “numbed” by isolation, recalling real-life, Zoomed-out society trapped behind digital screens for far too long.

They reveal their dreams of “vanishing,” until joyfully reuniting during a moment that melts the heart.

The play ends with an “Everything Party,” capped by a blizzard of balloons, during which audience members are urged to shout out what they missed during their own personal lockdowns.

It could also easily have ended with the two friends embracing, which would have packed a greater emotional punch, but kids of all ages will always vote for a balloon finale.

As the world continues to thaw from those unprecedented years, we will see more of these pandemic-inspired creations as “time passes,” one of the recurring, even reassuring lines in Gather.

These works, whether told through metaphor, or more literal interpretation, will freeze those moments in time for future generations to reflect upon and understand, every story of survival as unique and precious as a falling, fleeting snowflake.

holly.harris@shaw.ca