Posted by Sudbury Northern Life
BY LIBBY DORNBUSH
Take an acclaimed Canadian playwright, one of his award winning Newfoundland-set plays, and two actors whose down east roots and inherent love of words are given full rein, and you come up with an exciting and exhilarating evening of theatre and of glorious story-telling.
The playwright is Newfoundlander David French, the play, the widely acclaimed Salt Water Moon and the venue the second production of the season at Sudbury Theatre Centre.
Salt Water Moon, which runs at Sudbury Theatre Centre until Nov. 9, is a play of words, and of stories, stories that come from the two people on stage, from their families, their village, their country and beyond. The time is 1926, people in Newfoundland are struggling.
This is a land of poverty, where daughters are put in homes or sent off to service to earn their keep. It is a land where the men's labour goes into the fisheries, but the money goes into the pockets of the owners, where a man's pride can be trampled at a whim.
It is a land which has seen its young men unthinkingly killed by the thousands in France, and where hundreds of other young men are going to the cities of Canada to make their fortune.
One such young man, Jacob Mercer, has just returned to Coley's Point and is determined to win back Mary Snow, the young woman he left behind so abruptly a year ago.
His only weapon is persuasion, and he pours his words, his facial expressions and his body language into that persuasion. And all these stories are his persuasion. Mercer is wonderfully and enthusiastically played by Richard Harte, whose own Eastern roots serve him well in this performance.
Both he and Jodie Stevens, who portrays Mary Snow, have close links with Atlantic Canada and their familiarity with the regional accents brings an added authenticity to their performances.
Ms Stevens' performance is equal in strength to Harte's, and her character has a degree of poignancy that captures the audience's sympathy. She has a wonderfully elastic face, and much of the strength of her performance lies in her reactions to the very physical, wordy character of Mercer. But she has her own stories too, and, by adopting a much different tone from that of Harte, she brings them their own sad credibility.
Where Mercer is a dreamer, she is knowledgeable, practical, pragmatic and protective of her own feelings and her ability to both love and be deeply hurt. Where Mercer sees the moon as a romantic symbol, she knows its geography and place in the universe.
Mercer spins the light of the stars into his stories; she knows which one is blue, and its name and its place.
My only criticism of this performance is of the costume designing, and it would have been too minor to mention if it had not intruded as often as it did into my enjoyment of this play.
Ms Stevens, playing a young, life-loving character, is forced into a stiff black wig of indeterminate period, as well as what I suppose were supposed to be "sensible" shoes of the 1926 era, but are actually heavy, shiny modern pumps.
Unfortunately the playwright has written into the script a yellow dress, not the most flattering colour for many, but the style here is truly dreadful. Overall, one has no idea of her character's age or the time in which it is set.
Our confusion is further compounded by the very modern looking three piece suit worn by Mr. Harte.
Regular patrons of STC may remember the production of French's play, Of the Fields, Lately, in the spring of 2006. In that play the young Mercer has grown old, a crotchety, manipulative, whiney old, and a trial for his long forbearing wife, the Mary of this play. These two plays form parts of a quintet of semi-autographical plays by French, and it is to be hoped that more of his work might be shown here.
Salt Water Moon is guest directed by Malcolm Black, returning to Sudbury after his stint here last year as Director of the popular Tuesdays with Morrie. Along with Jodie Stevens and Richard Harte, they have given Sudbury a magical evening of word and story.
For more information about ticket prices and curtain times, go to the theatre centre's website .
