On the first night of in-person performances of the St. Ambroise Montreal Fringe Festival, theatre goers were welcomed to a very different experience for those returning to a live theatre for the first time in 2021. Cued outside, audience members waited for the doors to open where they were given a brand-new surgical mask to wear, registered for contact tracing, and seated in a very spaced-out manner throughout the Studio Hydro-Quebec at the Monument Nationale.
Phantom Limb Theatre presented Justin Calla’s “The Space Between”, running about 40 minutes in total, the cast of six perform what’s best described as a somewhat dark show, with a few comedic highlights in finding humour in sorrow. The show features Gail (Leya Graie), a young woman who is grieving the loss of her friend and displaying personal difficulties in coming to terms with the death of a close friend. In dealing with grief, she becomes desperate to find a way to contact him and gain closure from him, beyond the grave. She has a chance run-in with Gwyn (Julia Kennific) in public, who takes notice of Gail and develops a quick connection with her, introducing her to a group of individuals who together, call spirits from afterlife, into this world. The role of Gail, is one that is quite challenging, going through an array of emotions, desperation and conflict. Graie performs well in shifting gears in mood, emotion and stage of grieving many times through the entire production.
The show features some comedic moments with an overly dramatic and emo Eric (Jake Cohen), a flamboyant cat-fanatic Jonesy (Alexander Cruz), with support from Estelle (Rachel Renaud) and Aja (Casey Marie-Ecker). One outstanding point in the show was the costume design (Jess Beyer) which was great and creatively carried out in many different parts of the production. Fringe shows are typically on a budget and get innovative in how to dress the actors—this production showed interesting and solid costumes combined with the use of theatre masks that seemed to get more and more twisted as the show went on.
Being a young, up-and-coming theatre troupe – the hard work, dedication and passion for performing certainly shows on the troupe’s faces (from the nose up as all performers wore surgical masks during the production). That being said, the show itself felt as if it could have used more time and extended a bit longer to develop a deeper and more meaningful relationship for the subject material with the audience. Death and the afterlife are very difficult topics to address on their own. In this show, bringing light comedic moments, darkness and exploring different ways of grieving a loss, is not something that can be easily felt on the audience in such a short show. There could have been much more depth and development to the characters and more about their personal backgrounds explored to give further connection with the audience and enhancing details of each of the character’s lives within the storyline. All-in-all, a great first run at producing this new original work, with plenty of room to evolve each of the characters in their own storyline.
All that to say, as a first live show seen so far during this year’s Montreal Fringe, I certainly applaud this up-and-coming troupe for their work in creating and producing this piece and taking on the challenge of confronting the topic of death and continuing to create theatre given the circumstances of this pandemic. I look forward to seeing the growth and development of all of the performers and collaborators in this production, in future shows and projects.
The Space Between runs at the Studio Hydro-Quebec from June 10-20. For more information and tickets, check out www.montrealfringe.ca
