Canuck Cantatas is the first live show from Against the Grain Theatre since, I think, 2023.  It’s good to see what was once a staple of the Toronto indy scene in action again.  This show is three short monodramas.  Each features a soprano singer who is also either composer or librettist and all are based around the story of one, Canadian, character.  The accompanying ensemble consisted of piano (Spencer Kryzanowski), string trio (Julia Mirzoev, Russell Iceberg, Peter Eom) and bass clarinet (Brad Cherwin).  Since the show was at the Redwood everybody was miked and amplified with speakers all around the performance space which was an interesting effect.

The set up had the band and a video screen on the Redwood stage with a sort of mini stage in the middle of the floor space with the audience arranged around it on three sides with others seated in the gallery/bar space.  Jenn Nicholls directed all three shows and worked in a very effective camp fire story telling and night sky theme to link the stories and add some Canuckitas.  Three supers; Daniela Agostino, Mona Aubramani and Gandharva Krishna, gave the solo characters something extra to work with.

First up was Danika Lorèn with The Close Encounters of Faith Friesen (libretto by Vern Thiessen).  This is the story of a young woman obsessed with the night sky, lunar landings and the idea of life elsewhere in the universe.  It’s essentially an optimistic piece with a pulsating score and gorgeous videos (Nathan Bruce).  There was a real sense of mystery and possibility with some welcome ambiguity.  Pretty impressive.

Emma Pennell’s Red Daughters was a more autobiographical piece.connecting the experience of a young Indigenous woman moving from a rural setting to become a singer in the city against the ever present backdrop of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls and the red dresses that symbolise/memorialise them.  Spencer Kryzanowski’s score, composed in less than a week, provided a richly romantic support to Emma’s powerful singing.  Piano score only here but really with just a few days to write it one could hardly expect orchestration!

Sarah Slean’s Kimberly Dunbar (libretto by Royce Vavrek) foregrounded a woman in (apparently) small town Alberta trying to purge her town library of anything she deemed offensive to her “family values”, culminating in a book burning, which at least harked back to Jenn’s campfire theme.  Text messages, video calls and the like surfaced some opposition but essentially a lynch mob emerged and a lynch mob is still ugly when it’s made up of self righteous suburban moms.  Slean’s poppy/romantic score seemed to underline the essential banality of her character reflecting Arendt’s well know aphorism.  I get what Slean and Vavrek were trying to do here but I’m not sure it really worked.

There was a very cute camp fire Epilogue and a talkback to finish things up.  It’s quite an ambitious show that largely succeeds and seems to indicate that Royce Vavrek has every intention of putting AtG back in the forefront of the Toronto scene.

Yhere are two more shows; Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3pm.

Photos by Lauren Halasz