Ashley Whitehead as The North Star in Polarity Photo by Chelsey Stuyt
I started the second day of the Halifax Fringe Festival at The Bus Stop Theatre seeing Jessie Walker’s new play Craig in Conversation With God starring Leah Pritchard as Craig and Jeremy Webb as God. Leah Pritchard will be playing Craig in all subsequent performances of the play, but the role of God is being played by a different Halifamous person (and one Emerging Halifamous person) for each performance, so they are all different- collect all six!
Craig is a green dinosaur who loves to eat flowers. One day God takes great pains to get his attention because he has been thinking of destroying the Earth via a meteor and he’d like to put Craig through a few paces to see if he can make a case for why the Earth should be spared. What is immediately interesting about this, really one way conversation, as Craig doesn’t really speak, is that God knows everything that is going to happen in the entire history of Earth, and poor Craig only knows his own little reality, living in a beautiful, natural, bountiful place, where he mostly just eats, does his business, plays a little music, does a little play-doh art, and finds someone to mate with. We learn that there is nothing inherently wrong with Craig or with the Earth that Craig knows, but God is hoping to prevent great tragedies that are to come by washing his hands of the Earth now.
Leah Pritchard plays Craig as earnestly wanting to please God, and gung ho to do whatever He asks of him. God says that he has been chosen because he exemplifies the Earth’s spirit, which means that Earth is filled with naive wonder, has a deep well of confidence, is charming as all get out, but may need a bit more practice to compete with the bigger kids. God is exasperated by everything that Craig tries, and here Jeremy Webb channels the most authoritative Britishness possible to both raise Craig’s hopes up, and then to burst bubble after bubble. What will happen? Will Craig be able to pull out a hat trick at the last minute to save the Earth, and will it be very clever? You will have to go and see for yourselves!
This is a silly little romp of a tiny play. Leah Pritchard is absolutely delightful. I think when I imagine God’s voice it probably already IS Jeremy Webb, so this casting seemed like a no brainer to me, but at the crux Walker is asking us a profound question about how we see the Earth, given all that we have done as humans, do we still believe that our time here has been valuable, and worth protecting? How far have we wandered away from Craig being the exemplifying spirit of our planet, and what would it take to somehow wander on back?
TWISI Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Around + Out Theatre Co.’s Craig in Conversation With God written by Jessie Walker plays at the Bus Stop Theatre (2203 Gottingen Street, Halifax) at the following times: September 5th at 2:00pm, September 6th at 8:00pm, September 11th at 5:00pm and September 13th at 9:30pm.
Next at the Bus Stop I saw Sigh No More Productions’ play Passed Down starring Madelaine Rose and directed by Rosalyn Cosgrove. This play is about a young girl named Persephone who is at first extremely excited to inherit a remote old home from her Grandaunt Lizzie, despite the concerns from her parents who make allusions to Lizzie being some kind of a witch. Undeterred, Persephone goes to the house alone to move in, but is waiting on her friend Ophelia to join her when a series of really creepy events begin to happen to her that makes her believe that there is some kind of Practical Magic level curse going on, but Aunt Lizzie is much more sinister than Aunt Frances or Aunt Jet.
There is a lot in this play’s conceit that is working really well. The idea of a Millennial being willing to put up with any evil poltergeist and to confront her dark family history to procure housing for themself is really astute and hilarious. Madelaine Rose really commits to the harrowing emotional arc that Persephone goes on, and gives an intense performance.
I had a few questions that might be helpful in further focusing the plot. We get a lot of exposition about the fates of Persephone’s great grandfather, grandfather, and to a lesser extent her uncle, and we start to see a pattern emerge that if Lizzie is indeed a witch she is a vengeful one who is targeting those who have been chronically abusive to the women in the family. Within the present day narrative, however, this changes, and we see her targeting Persephone’s female best friend, Ophelia, a random man that Persephone very well might never see again, and Persephone herself. I was curious to know more about this change in Lizzie’s victimology, and what she was seeking to gain by offering this house to her grandniece and then proceeding to terrorize her before she had even unpacked. I think that clarifying Lizzie’s goals will help to build the tension for the audience. I also was a bit unclear why the extremely overprotective mother at the beginning of the play was suddenly so nonchalant at the end when Persephone was calling in extreme distress. Even having had a few glasses of wine, why wouldn’t Persephone leave the house to go find Ophelia, or call the police herself if she thought that she was in extreme danger? It might be helpful to establish earlier in the plot that Persephone is trapped in the house and her phone has gone dead to raise the stakes higher earlier so she has no choice but to remain in the haunted house.
It is hard to create a horror play with just one actor and Madelaine Rose is really doing an excellent job of bringing all the spooks to life in this one.
Passed Down plays at the Bus Stop Theatre (2203 Gottingen Street, Halifax) at the following times: September 5th at 9:00pm, September 10th at 9:00pm, September 11th at 9:00pm, and September 12th at 9:00pm.
The Ward and the Watershed was up next at the Bus Stop Theatre. This is a work in progress by Benton Elliott. There is a lot in this play that is really interesting. It is set on a fictional island where long ago a man built a mysterious wall. From that wall came a prison as this man convinced the population of the island that their water had been poisoned and only he could save them. Now they live confined within this prison at the mercy of the mysterious warden who rations their water. It has been generations now, and most of the people, like Chuck, have become demoralized and resigned to living a tiny life within these walls. Chuck has tried to embrace a sort of Buddhist adjacent philosophy that even amid violence and oppression he can find a zen state within himself. This disgusts Deo, who is adamant that there must be a way to overthrow the system and save those who are suffering from starvation and thirst if everyone works together to do it.
The handmade animated projections are a very cool element that help both ground the play on this island, and to tell the history of this land. There are strong performances and fight choreography that help to create a clear element of tension and high stakes for the characters.
I did have a few questions about the context that we are meeting Chuck and Deo. Chuck seems to have been in the prison longer than Deo, as he references having once been full of righteous anger and hope for a better world, but he has over time grown disillusioned and now feels like it’s senseless to wish for more than what they have. The two read as being about the same age, so I wanted to know how their trajectories of finding themselves in the prison had been so different? How long have they known each other? Why does Deo trust Chuck, and why does he think he needs Chuck in his plan for overthrowing the powers that be instead of someone else who might share his optimism and fighting spirit? [Spoiler Alert] Chuck eventually gets possession of a gun, but leaves it behind when he goes off to confront the larger threat, and I was wondering why he wouldn’t take the gun with him? His ultimate confrontation with the powers that be is a bit vague, but the ending of the play is very satisfying.
The Ward and the Watershed is a short, engaging political drama filled with creativity, and it feels good to watch these characters rise up against those who would hoard their resources and steal their land to seek their freedom to live on their beautiful naturally bountiful island.
TWISI Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Ward and the Watershed by Benton Elliott plays at the Bus Stop Theatre (2203 Gottingen Street, Halifax) at the following times: September 5th at 3:30pm and September 12th at 2:00pm.
If you’re able to see Craig In Conversation With God and Ashley Whitehead’s Polarity in the same day like I did, I would really recommend it. Also, if you’re able to see it in an audience filled with improvisers, it really makes for a fun and unpredictable performance.
Whitehead plays the North Star in this play, and they have noticed something changing lately in the humans they have watched for millennia- the humans aren’t paying any attention to them anymore. Feeling like their usefulness has worn out they decide that it’s time to tie up their loose ends and retire to somewhere new, but this proves to be a little more difficult than they first anticipated.
They are dressed in the shiniest silver suit. Whitehead looks akin to a star that a child might make out of tinfoil at Christmas. They move around the space keeping the soles of their shiny bottom points firmly on the ground, but early in the performance they experience joy in discovering the movement of their joints- especially their knees and their elbows. They speak directly to the audience, and the audience’s responses impact (within reason) the way that the performance will unfold. The improvisers in the audience last night were particularly great at calling out both ideas that seemed to conform to where Whitehead themself was going, and also ideas that were more deliberately intended to momentarily pivot in an opposite direction, and Whitehead took both on in stride. Whitehead was a contemporary dancer for many years before they found clown, and you can see their dance training in the hyper-specific ways that they are able to move their body. There is one moment where the North Star tries on an array of different imaginary hats, and each one makes the Star feel a different type of emotion, which we can gauge from their facial expression and they way they comport themself. Watching them switching hats quickly and changing into these very stylized expressions is truly to watch someone who is a master of maneuvering their body in absolutely definite ways. This is all aided by Sarah Thompson, who provides the outside eye for the show.
Like with Craig the dinosaur in Jessie Walker’s play the audience is really given the opportunity to convince the North Star that they are still needed and wanted, and that they still serve a purpose, even in such a technological world. Perhaps folks will leave the theatre thinking that they want to look up from their phones a bit more often, and gaze at the celestial bodies above us, and to go back to feeling that wonder at what they are that we felt when we were children singing the nursery rhyme.
TWISI Star Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ or Five Polarises
Polarity plays at the Bus Stop Theatre (2203 Gottingen Street, Halifax) at the following times: September 5th at 11:00am, September 6th at 12:30pm, September 8th at 6:30pm, September 9th at 5:00pm, September 11th at 8:00pm, September 12th at 11:00am, and September 13th at 3:30pm.
Halifax Fringe runs from September 3rd to September 13th, 2026 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. Many shows have 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, but they can be helpful for productions that are touring, or seeking funding for further opportunities for development, so with that in mind I will be giving out four, four and a half, and five star ratings this Fringe.
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