A mother and her 10-year-old son move from the farm to Montreal to start a new life, only to find the rift in their relationship filled by a parent’s worst fears, a child’s dangerous curiosity, and a thing that threatens to either push them over the edge—or bring them back together.
Now playing at the Centaur Theatre as part of their annual Wildside Festival, Scapegoat Carnivale’s Ricki is a tribute to the power of family in a world where fears lurk right outside our door. With powerful performances by the mother (Julie Tamiko Manning), son (Gabe Maharjan), and depanneur-loitering ne’er-do-well (Jon Lachlan Stewart), this is a fable where the lines of good versus evil are purposefully blurred to see down to what makes us all human, no matter what we look like from the outside.
The writing in this is slick and superb, with deep and often dark insights about loss, childhood, parenting, and the changing dynamics of family. “Don’t make big decisions and think you can always change them later,” the mother yells to her son from another room that, to him, may as well be on a different planet. “Don’t assume you’ll be who you are now forever.”
Throw in a clown lamp, a sparse set, depanneur neon, and a thing of dubious nature then crank the absurdity to 10, and you’ve got the recipe for a truly fun and strangely moving piece that will leave you wondering who Ricki really is—and if maybe Ricki is what inevitably connects us all.
Ricki is playing at the Centaur until Saturday February 3rd. Find tickets here.
The Wildside Festival is on until February 8.
