Emma Chapman-Lin and Charlie MacLean with their Realtor puppet
The final performance of Beautiful Huge New Property by A Flat of Thirty Eggs Puppet Company was rained out on the last day of the Halifax Fringe Festival, but creators Charlie MacLean and Emma Chapman-Lin were able to reschedule one final performance last Sunday outside on the field next door to the Atlantic Superstore on Quinpool Road, which I believe was their original intended venue, as the land very much plays a major role in the play. During the Fringe Festival the play was presented behind The Nest, which is across the street from the field.
We are introduced to The Realtor, a highly realistic puppet made to look like the torso of a man, and when held in a certain position against the puppeteers’ bodies he seems to be moving, using their legs as his. The Realtor is trying to sell what he sees as a lucrative and exciting “beautiful, huge, new property” coming soon to this field, while a curious Angel of History arrives hoping to expose both the Realtor’s deceit surrounding the property, but also the history of the land itself.
The play is a humorous and cheeky exploration of our current housing crisis- investigating whether these new unaffordable housing developments really make our city more liveable and workable than the wooden row houses that existed along this street for hundreds of years. It touches on the years that this field was once St. Patrick’s High School, which opened in 1954, closed in 2007 when the students were funnelled into the larger Citadel High, which merged the student bodies from both St. Pat’s and nearby QEH. The school was demolished in 2015 after nearly a decade of community leaders asking if the building could be re-purposed and used for something else, and years in which the abandoned school was used as makeshift shelter for unhoused folks. If this story sounds familiar it’s because it followed the exact same trajectory as Bloomfield School (the alma mater of Viola Desmond), recently destroyed by fire, and the original Halifax Memorial Library, which still stands abandoned in Grafton Park.
I wondered if MacLean and Chapman-Lin had used the Halifax Directories at the Central Library to research real people who once lived on this site, or whether they were using their imaginations. I think there is room for them to give the audience a bit more information about these people, to paint a more vivid portrait of what Quinpool Road looked like in various decades from the past, as we work our way back to a time before the British and French settlers arrived in Kjipuktuk.
I found watching the beautifully crafted puppets to be the most enthralling aspect of this show. The Angel of History is an odd fantastic creator, who stands in contrast to how life-like the Realtor can look, especially from a certain distance and angle. The puppet looks like Seth and Josh Myers’ dad, Larry, which is probably a coincidence, but it amused me very much to the point that I found myself naming the Realtor “Larry” in my head.
I really enjoyed delving into the history of this one Halifax field in such a charming, creative, and strange way. This was my introduction to the work of A Flat of Thirty Eggs Puppet Company, and these folks are wildly talented. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next from them!
TWISI Fringe Rating: Two Thumbs Up!
Beautiful Huge New Property has closed at Halifax Fringe.
Halifax Fringe has officially announced their new leadership team today: Jake Planinc is the incoming Festival Director, following in the footsteps of Sara Graham, who had been in this role since 2022. Blaze Fraser is coming aboard as Managing Director. Planinc said in a release today, “The Halifax Fringe is one of Nova Scotia’s most vital cultural institutions. The festival offers an accessible, uncensored, and un-juried platform for artists to create, experiment, and perform. I’m honoured and humbled to have the opportunity to serve as… Festival Director.” Fraser also says they are “grateful for the opportunity to support and celebrate local art creation and performance.” Planinc is well known to audiences in Halifax as the Artistic Director of Matchstick Theatre, and Fraser is the current General Manager of Ship’s Company Theatre in Parrsboro. The 36th Annual Halifax Fringe Festival is slated for September 3rd-13th, 2026, and I’m sure we will hear a lot from Planinc and Fraser about the future of the festival between now and then. Congratulations!
