I’ll be honest, I’m not a big theatre guy, so I will keep this review as simple as I can. However, a couple of things I do know about are storytelling and when I get bored. I did not get bored on this night and I enjoyed the telling of Job’s Wife.
Job’s Wife is a story of a woman who gets pregnant by a Native boy. The piece explores the mothers struggle with her parents and the community’s perception of Natives and getting pregnant out of wedlock. Things get whacked out when God appears before her in an apparent attempt to help out.
Clocking in at about 40 minutes, this show was the perfect length. So often I find myself watching a movie or some other play trying to predict when the end is going to come. This was not the case with Job’s Wife. The piece stayed ahead of me and kept me interested right to the end.
Featuring Keith Barker, Nicole Joy Fraser and Falen Johnson, the entire show is simply but very effectively staged. Keith Barker does an excellent job of seamlessly switching between the rolls of priest, boyfriend, father, doctor and God while Nicole reacts and draws us in to the struggles and difficult decisions that she is facing.
Job’s Wife was written by Yvette Nolan, who is the Artistic Director at Native Earth, an organization dedicated to creating, developing and producing professional artistic expressions of the Aboriginal experience in Canada. There are obvious native influences in the production which added a level of depth an meaning to the obvious storyline. Having some background on the subject and much of the symbolism used on stage explained in the program added to my enjoyment and understanding of the show. It was a nice touch.
Remaining shows at the Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace are:
August 15th – 8:PM
August 16th – 4:PM
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