Pirate-clowns or Clown-pirates? In either case, they’re the ones with the red noses in Emil Sher’s Bluenose, which receives its latest staging for children and families on March 29, thanks to Carousel Players and director Pablo Felices-Luna.
Katie Bowes plays Ku, who has a blue nose. The pirates (Spatt, Ratt and Knat; Mark Crawford, Conor Green and Deanna Jones) can’t wrap their heads around that - Ku must be kidnapped. And Ku knows that not all is quite right with piratical behaviour. So we’re set for a romp of a play with a message.
But the message isn’t slapped straight in our face. As Felices-Luna puts it, “while the play looks at issues of diversity, exclusion and appropriation, it really just becomes an experience where we get to see how we play with each other, where we find out who among us likes to set rules, who likes to break them, and ultimately, who is able to have fun.”
The Montreal-born and Toronto-based Emil Sher isn’t just a successful and undeservedly under-sung playwright. His is a masterful voice in a wide range of genres - screenplays, radio plays, short stories, television.
Carousel Players, a very well-respected and award-winning not-for-profit organization, dedicates itself to producing theatre which is relevant to young audiences, theatre which is, of course, entertaining, but also challenging. They regularly tour Ontario schools and theatres, have done so, in fact, for 35 years. They’ve toured to great acclaim in England and Japan. They’ve adapted Inuit and Neutral First Nation legends as well as Tolkien and Maurice Sendak. They’ve presented audiences with the last glass of water on the planet and with the War of 1812. With Bluenose they’re back in their hometown of St. Catharines, performing at their headquarters facility, the Sullivan Mahoney Courthouse Theatre at 101 King Street.
You’ve got to love pirates who wear life jackets and can learn life lessons, a theatre company that borrows its name from the antique merry-go-round at St. Catharines’ Lakeside Park, and an effective (and affecting) play full of clashing assumptions and clashing swords, with heaps of physical comedy and laugh-out-loud one-liners.
Saturday, March 29 - performances at 11am and 2pm - tickets $10 each for all ages - for tickets, call Carousel Players at 905-682-8326; for further information, visit www.carouselplayers.com
June 23, 2008 1-800-263-2988
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