You Won’t Be Here (Tomorrow) tells the story of two sisters, Julie and Simone, both dealing with huge personal struggle. As they try their best to be there for each other, all the years of pent up anger and resentment towards each other is released before they finally reconcile. I don’t want to give away too many details on this one because I think the whole world should come and see it for themselves.
Set in the early 1950s in Mid-America, two lovers reunite after many years of not seeing each other. Both are haunted by their former romance and meet up to understand where life has taken them since the end of their relationship. Each play offers up a different perspective.
This review was painful for me to write. So much passion and effort goes into a theatre production; my awareness of this makes it difficult to break the news that a show has failed to satisfy the needs of its target audience. I wanted to like Skylark Productions’ Stay With Me at the Palmerston Library. M.J. Kang’s play (which she has written and is performing) is part of FringeKids!, and I was very much looking forward to it.
Good Girl by barking birds theatre is a one woman show playing at the Annex Pawn. The Fringe performance is small, but it carries a hefty weight. The drama is more powerful than it appears.
Tanya Rintoul plays Layla who wishes to be like her mother said she was: “a good girl.” Layla feels a mixture of emotions about a mysterious incident, which she slowly reveals throughout the sixty minute performance. She allows herself and the audience to wonder if her goodness exists or not.
Before the show, standing in line to see Bremen Rock City at the Palmerston Theatre, a number of the kids around me asked “Are we going to see The Wizard of Oz?” Which, I suppose, is the play they had heard of. It struck me on the way out that in ten years, some other Fringe show might be crowded with kids saying “Are we going to see Bremen Rock City?” Yeah, it’s that good.
It’s not perfect, mind you. Not yet. But the bones are so good, I can easily see what it’s going to grow into once it’s got just a little seasoning. The cast is exceptional (more on them in a minute), full of what feels like authentic fun and enthusiasm. It’s not a jazz-hands, imagined performance of what they think children’s theatre should look like, it’s a sincere kind of fun that invites the audience into it. The songs are that magical combination of being kid-friendly while not causing adult ears to bleed.
Last night I caught a performance of You Won’t Be Here (Tomorrow) at the White House Studio Project presented by Theatre In Spite Of. Let me just say immediately that this was one of the best pieces of theatre I have ever seen.
