A fairy tale that takes down fascism? Don’t mind if we boo!

A fascistic cabal living it up in the cushy clouds of Skyworld hopes to drain the depleted Lowlands of its remaining natural resources, forcing young Jax (Cyan Gargol) to climb the beanstalk and resist in Sick + Twisted Theatre’s third annual “Crip-Mas” panto.

In the panto tradition, audiences are invited to boo the villains — Artie Lorraine’s President/Emperor-Elect (P.E.E.), Joanna Hawkins’ Masterminder and Carlyn Graff-Czehryn’s Henchman — and rally for the heroes, including the non-binary, neurodivergent Jax, their mother (Theresa Thomson) and the family’s noble, baritone-voiced steed (Christopher Dunn).

For Sick + Twisted, an inclusive theatre company founded by Debbie Patterson, the panto format has become an opportunity to showcase the talents of artists who experience a wide range of both visible and invisible disabilities while also offering riotous humour, bombastic song and dance — Joseph Aragon is musical director and accompanies on grand piano — and scathing critiques of ableist power structures.

Combining classic fairy and folk tales with contemporary commentary, the panto is catalyzed by its underdog spirit, relying on the audience to be as politically engaged as the onstage happenings.

“Though the topics we’re dealing with might seem a bit heavy, the panto is filled with singing and dancing,” says Fiona Smith, who co-wrote the script with Andrea von Wichert.

“It’s really active and the more the audience participates and interacts with what’s happening on stage, the better the panto is. Every night is going to be different.”

Last year, Smith and von Wichert took a jackhammer to downtown redevelopment plans by imagining Hansel and Gretel at Portage Place, with the siblings abandoned by their cash-strapped father outside the Canada Life Centre, priced out of the city’s core by an impending condominium complex.

This year, Smith says, the initial idea for the panto came in a dream where the beanstalk straddled two worlds, crossing a border into a country led by a tyrannical politician who sought to absorb his neighbours.

“It just kind of grew from that,” says Smith, a neurodivergent trauma therapist who recently scripted The Girl in the Park, a drama about the late sculptor Leo Mol, through a residency with Vancouver’s Glitch Theatre.

Von Wichert, a prolific scenic artist, writer and performer, didn’t see the dream as such a far stretch from reality.

“I would just say that I’m upset, and obsessed, with the recent rise of fascism, not only in North America, but across the world. My parents were small children in Nazi Germany, so the idea that that kind of state would be held up as something desirable is anathema to me. And the power of a select few of mostly men, who simply through accident of birth, were put in a position to amass great wealth – their ability to dictate the quality of life for the majority of humans on Earth — fills me with rage,” she says.

Von Wichert says the subject led her to go down a research rabbit hole: “It sort of felt like we were trying to write our way out of feelings of complicity with our society.”

The Masterminder, a character played by deaf actor Hawkins, was conceived as an amalgam in the spirit of tech financier Peter Thiel and Trump consigliere Stephen Miller, pulling the strings behind puppet monarch P.E.E. (played by recent National Theatre School graduate Artie Lorraine).

While the panto’s goal is to poke fun at society, the company’s aim is always to provide opportunities to established and emerging artists in an inclusive, accepting environment.

“One of the things we’re really conscious of is making sure we write really juicy roles for individuals who don’t always have access to juicy roles,” says Smith.

“We write them in a way where their disability is not the central aspect of the show,” adds von Wichert, who doesn’t even like using the word disability.

One of those juicy roles went to Gargol, a third-year honours acting student at the University of Winnipeg. Before helping to conceive the role of an enthusiastic youth obsessed with beans, the actor, who is neurodivergent and non-binary, had never encountered a character whose neurodivergence is depicted so matter-of-factly.

“Being surrounded by people, many of whom are also neurodivergent and struggle with things, meant we could talk openly about disability, about access, about needs, about all of those things,” says Gargol, who will play four roles in the U of W’s upcoming production of playwright David Paquet’s eco-satire The Weight of Ants (Feb. 10-14).

“I don’t have to hide when I’m in a room full of people who are very similar to me.”

Instead, the panto players are in the spotlight, ready to be cheered on as they confront the powers that be.

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