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Wendy Lill's play, The Glace Bay Miner's Museum opened this week at the Great Canadian Theatre Company...first of all...I have not read the novel by Sheldon Currie on which the play is based.. Nor have I seen the movie Margaret's Museum also based on the novel. So I am coming to this play with no comparisons or preconceived ideas at all. What I saw last night at the GCTC was an exciting play, even an important play, and it was very well done. Director Richard Rose's fluid staging brought out all the rhythms and vibrations of Wendy Lill's play would is set up to look and sound like a piece of Cape Breton oral culture. It's presented like a story telling session lead by the fiery young Margaret McNeil. Margaret is played by an astounding actress called Tara Rosling. She explodes the stage with her taut energy, baring her soul almost like some untamed creature, a force of nature defying destiny. Ms Rosling is extraordinary as as she recreates the events that lead up to the opening of her own very special Miner's museum in Glace Bay. Art Penson's set in fact represents an enormous museum to all the dead Miners...rows and rows of shelves filled with glass bottles, boots, appliances, personnel belongings, set off by Martin Conboys special almost eerie lighting effects... As Margaret talks, we see unfolding around her, her life with her mother (Terry Tweed), her grandfather (Jean-Louis Roux), brother (John Cleland) and her husband. Chris Heyerdahl plays Nell Currie, her lover and husband and there is a tender, playful intimacy and special magic between Heyerdahl and Rosling as these two excellent actors create larger than life creatures, cavorting on the beach or clashing in the house. Neil Currie, with the thunderous laugh, long lanky body, literally invades the McNeil house hold with his droning bagpipes, bringing joy to Margaret's family, grief stricken by the death of the father and the older brother, in a recent accident of the coal mine. What unfolds then is a tragic tale where 2 visions of the world collide. Neil represents the need to go to the roots of the Cape Breton Celtic traditions, seeking out ones heritage to find a sense of identity..as he says...We are what we remember. On the other hand, brother Ian, represents the modern technological vision of progress, the class struggle for improved working conditions in the mine, made possible only through a strong union. And this struggle, Laced with magic realism and social realism, is also shown as a clash of oral tradition and written ~tradition. The characters are constantly calling on each other to tell a story, and we hear the distant Gaelic echoings of the voice of the feisty old great grandmother floating in the background while the mute old Grandpa, who refuses to talk, writes his own notes over great Granny's Gaelic scribbles and forces everyone to read his thoughts on paper. However, poverty, and the power of the Coal mines are unbeatable.....and all that is left of Margaret's dreams are gathered in her strange disturbing museum. The production is full of priceless moments where the ensemble work of the company is impeccable. Also memorable is old Grandpa, played here by Jean-Louis Roux?Sometimes furiously gasping for air, sometimes transported to ecstasies of joy by Neil's bagpipes, actor Roux manages to express all sorts of emotions and states without uttering a single word..Terry Tweed as the mother, always tense, always conscious of the uncomfortable reality, is a perfect counterpoint to the slow rhythms of Neil and her son Ian. So, a bewitching play, an astounding lead actress_..an almost impeccable production. Excellent entertainment, that's The Glace Bay Miner's Museum..now on at the GCTC and it runs till March 15. |