Home from Montreal

I am back in Arlington, having eaten plenty of poutine (OK, I only had it twice, but those were supper Sunday and lunch Monday), read some of rysmiel's books, seen another Fringe show, and not gotten enough sleep (because I kept waking up early). More details to follow, I hope.

Montreal Fringe: The Passage

rysmiel and I had tickets for two Fringe shows Sunday night, but the first one, "Checkout 606," was cancelled due to wind. (The venue for that seemed to be a bit of street next to a food truck.) So we went to Frits Alors! for dinner, then walked back up St. Laurent and saw The Passage, a play about the Yukon Gold Rush, told by a woman who is trying to make her way to the Yukon. It's very effective—simple staging, mostly a lantern and a handful of other props, while the actress tells her story in an otherwise-darkened room.

The story starts with the expedition Nelly is part of losing their horses; she loops back a bit to talk about joining the group and the departure from Edmonton, and then tells about the ongoing journey and what goes wrong, and her interactions with the men and boy in the group, and theirs with each other.

My program says the performer [sic] is Jen Viens, and the writer/director is Adriana Bogaard, both originally from B.C. "The piece was inspired by the true story of Nelly Garner - the first woman to travel to the Klondike via Edmonton. However, many creative liberties have been taken."