Kyle Gillis and Jessie Walker in Gwenyth Kills Her Husband (In A God Honouring Way) Photo by Stoo Metz
I started my day at Halifax Fringe yesterday at DANSpace and caught Solo Chicken Productions‘ closing show of Tilt. What a unique concept! The show starts with the technician for the show asking the audience for an “I am” statement that will be used during the play. Right away someone in the front row suggested “I am your mother from a past life.” This would become very important to set the entire tone of this performance.
The play starts off scripted, but with a really captivating physical theatre component that literally launches our actors, Jean-Michel Cliche as Chris and Alex Rioux as Lee, through space and time as we bounce around between a scene in the present and some subsequent flashbacks. Chris and Lee are married, and at the very beginning of the play they are extremely affectionate- as one speaks the other tenderly places a hand on one part of the other’s body, and this immediately sets the audience up to want this relationship to endure. But as the first few scenes unfold we see that, actually, Chris and Lee are having some marital problems. Chris is feeling that Lee is pulling away from him and that there is some new distance between them. Both tell us, the audience, more commonplace problems they’re having- but the real issue is something neither can initially put their finger on.
The answer comes on a projector from the technician. The reason why Chris and Lee are feeling distant from one another is because Lee is actually Chris’ mother from a past life. The rest of the play is improvised, and we watch Cliche and Rioux work hard to make the reality of this situation as not overtly incestuous as possible and also fleshed out enough that it actually makes some amount of sense. We get flashbacks to 1925 when Chris was once another boy named Chris, this mother’s original son, playing with a wheel and a stick and eating “grey bad” (some sort of bean gruel). We follow Chris’ mother’s journey as a ghost inhabiting unsuspecting humans’ bodies, and her bourgeoning relationship with a sexy GoGo dancer ghost from the 70s, which she rejects for the possibility of remaining on Earth with this version of her son.
The technician also seems to have paper props at their disposal, or maybe they’re making some as they go along, but haphazardly a little prop will pop up on the screen, like a ghost, that comments on the action in a really fun way. The technician also provides sound effects like running water and a fire alarm, which are scripted at the beginning of the play and then also improvised as needed later.
This is an excellent conceit for a improvised show, and Cliche and Rioux are excellent at bringing these characters and this specific relationship to life, and I was impressed with their ability to continue to complicate the story, to draw things out, when it would have been easier to simplify and wrap it up- but they had an impeccable sense of pacing and of time, knowing that they wouldn’t go long. It’s a masterclass in listening to your partner, and knowing when to say “yes and,” but also when to say “no, but.”
Solo Chicken Productions are from Fredericton and I really hope that they come back and play in Halifax again soon!
TWISI Fringe Rating: Two Thumbs Jump!
Tilt has closed at Halifax Fringe.
Next I went over to Neptune Theatre’s Imperial Studio to catch Orcs: A Musical. This show is an immersive experience. If you go on their Instagram page you are introduced to the orcs, but you aren’t given any information as to who they really are. This is one show where having the performers and creative team shrouded in mystery seems apt.
Set in the Lord of the Rings universe, Sauron’s orcs are contending with a sort of post-apocalyptic world where food is so scarce they’ve resorted to eating themselves. In a world where love is forbidden, two orcs attempt to defy the rules and fall in love with one another regardless. There’s also a sing along, and really great orc masks. The show is extremely short, so it’s almost more of an immerse vibe than a narrative story, which I think works for Fringe. But, if the creators have plans to expand this work, I would be interested in seeing more about the development of the relationship between our two lover orcs. If you know Lord of Rings well there are extra Easter Eggs for you, but it’s a weird romp for everyone!
Orcs: The Musical plays one more time on September 4th at 5:45pm. Tickets have been selling fast for this one, so get yours soon!
Next I booted it up to The Bus Stop Theatre to see Gabrielle Therrien’s new play One Thousand Suns, directed by Emma James.
This play is a story of a contemporary lesbian time traveller named Millie who finds herself in the chamber of Lady Cordelia of Appleyard in 1565, and the two end up developing a romance, which is, of course, complicated by the fact that they live in two very different times, and with very different understandings of the world and their place in it. The story is narrated by a sort of sex kitten in a pigeon cap played by Geneviève Richer, who really knows how to set the perfect tone between seductive and silly.
Gabrielle Therrien has created a really fun premise here for Millie and Cordelia, because, of course, the chasm between 1565 and 2025, even just in the most practical terms, is wide, and lends itself to lots of possibilities for comedy and confusion. I think there’s room for Therrien to keep playing with the wide array of different reactions Cordelia may have to the, really, endless array of marvels and wonders that surround her in today’s New York City. We see that she is frightened and scandalized, but what aspects of this world does she fall in love with, want to learn more about; what does she find incredibly convenient, even magical? Conversely, for Millie in 1565, what beyond Cordelia does she want to explore during this time in history? Millie has a huge advantage over Cordelia because she at least has some knowledge of this time- how does this make her curious, what does she find there that surprises her despite her rudimentary knowledge? Does she see anything that shocks and horrifies her?
One thing that I really loved is how Millie and Cordelia bond over the fact that Millie is grieving a hard loss. There’s room for this to be further explored, I think, because people had a completely different experience with death in 1565 than we have today. I think it would be really fascinating if one of the ways these two fall in love is that Cordelia offers Millie a helpful perspective that she can’t get from anyone else in her own world.
Nikki Valentine plays Millie and Katherine Currie plays Cordelia, and they have a lovely tenderness with each other as they guide one another through their wildly disparate realities.
I also love the title of this play, and the way that it comes about in the story; it’s really beautifully evocative. I hope Gabrielle Therrien keeps expanding on this work. It has great potential and is already a lovely mix of heartwarming and funny.
Capacity Theatre’s production of One Thousand Suns has closed at Halifax Fringe.
I capped off my day with Jessie Walker’s outrageous new play Gwenyth Kills Her Husband (In A God Honouring Way), also at the Bus Stop Theatre.
We are introduced to Gwenyth, played by Jessie Walker, who is a “trad wife” influencer very much under the thumb of her domineering husband Chett, played by Kyle Gillis, who has successfully created an online brand for their farm for which Gwenyth is the pretty face. Chett loves Jesus and football and has Fortune Feimster’s accent, so we are immediately able to infer much about who he is, especially when he starts degrading and dismissing Gwenyth’s own ideas. Gwenyth seeks solace in Charlotte, played by Sophie Schade, her neighbour, fellow trad wife, and secret lover. When Charlotte gets a dark idea of how she and Gwenyth can rid themselves of their husbands’ control, and perhaps even escape the patriarchy all together, they embark on an unsuspecting magical adventure into the world of the chicken coop.
This play is hilariously bananas. It is a cross between Sweeney Todd and a sketch Kate McKinnon and Kristen Wiig might have done on Saturday Night Live. Jessie Walker plays Gwenyth as naïve and demure, but with a simmering rage (and horniness) just below the surface. Schade’s Charlotte is more worldly and pragmatic and less god fearing, and is trying her best to manipulate Gwenyth for her own good. Kyle Gillis is absolutely hysterical as Chett. It’s a truly unbridled, unhinged performance that you so rarely get to see from Gillis. He walks the line between being a formidable enforcer of the patriarchy to a silly, ridiculous rodeo of a man so perfectly. During his death scene (that’s not a spoiler, right? It’s in the title) I nearly died myself from laughing so hard. Geneviève Steele plays Maryann, a woman who has previously been outcast from the community, and with very unexpected and strange consequences. I don’t know how to write about Steele’s performance in this play without ruining what I think absolutely needs to be a surprise, so I will just say that Steele is perfectly cast in this role, and you have never seen anything like it, and very likely never will again.
The only thought I had about the script is that I think because the audience recognizes fairly early on that we are in a magical world I don’t think Charlotte needs to justify her actions as thoroughly as she does in her monologue to us. I think we’re very much on board with Charlotte, and like in Sweeney Todd where the audience delights in “A Little Priest” instead of being horrified by the realities of it, we’re already complicit in the play’s conceit. I like that Charlotte needs to convince Gwenyth, but I don’t think she needs to convince the audience.
The show is very well directed by Dan Bray and Colleen Arcturus MacIsaac, really allowing the actors to milk the story for every ounce of comedy and satirical absurdity.
Make sure you get your tickets to this one soon because I’m sure it’s going to sell out quickly. Gwenyth Kills Her Husband (In a God Honouring Way) is completely clucked up in a way that is both charming and strange.
TWISI Fringe Rating: Two Thumbs Jump!
🐓 Around + Out Theatre Company and The Villains Theatre’s production of Gwenyth Kills Her Husband (In a God Honouring Way plays at the Bus Stop Theatre at the following times: September 3rd: 7:30pm, September 4th: 5:30pm, September 5th: 7:00pm, September 6th: 4:15pm, and September 7th: 2:00pm. 🐓
Halifax Fringe runs from August 27th to September 7th, 2025 in venues throughout the downtown and North End of Halifax. For more information and to make your Fringe schedule please visit this website. All official Fringe venues are wheelchair accessible and have all gender washrooms. For Fort Massey Church, if you are a wheelchair user, please contact the Box Office ahead of the show. Each show has at least one mask mandatory performance. Grab a Fringe Guide at any of the venues for a handy way to follow along with all the events at the festival. See ya there!
A Note On TWISI Fringe Ratings:
I have never liked rating Fringe shows, or any shows, using the 5 Star system as I have done in the past, so I started doing something new. From now on I will just be highlighting what I think are 4 or 5 Star Fringe Shows. A Two Thumbs Up Rating equals roughly to 4 Stars, while A Two Thumbs Jump Rating equals 5 Stars. I have stolen (with permission) “Two Thumbs Jump” from my friend Lenny Clayton, who is awesome, who came up with this phrase when she was a young kid reviewing films on YouTube.
