{"id":2471,"date":"2019-07-21T10:35:34","date_gmt":"2019-07-21T15:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jennyrevue.com\/wp\/?p=2471"},"modified":"2019-07-21T10:35:34","modified_gmt":"2019-07-21T15:35:34","slug":"2471","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jennyrevue.com\/wp\/2019\/2471","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Letters<\/p>\n

Parachuting Camel Productions—Alto – Portage Place<\/p>\n

Letters takes place on two continents during the Second World War. While it follows Winnipegger Paul Bailey\u2019s war experiences, it highlights the impact of the war on his family, friends, and fellow soldiers. Told through letters, separated in time between the minimum of two months it takes for them to be delivered and the other two-month minimum for their response to be returned, the play uses these spaces of time to punctuate changes in emotions and circumstances for every character.<\/p>\n

The cast works together well. I attended the second performance and already they were beginning to gel into a tight ensemble. The venue, while amazingly comfortable for the audience with its theatre seating, presented some challenges for the staging. Previously a movie theatre, the long, narrow stage in front of the
\nscreen enabled the separation between the war scenes in Europe and the family scenes in Winnipeg. On the other hand, with no back stage, and little depth, the complex entrances and exits combined with the need to walk the full width of the stage, required some adjustments to the staging of almost every scene. While one could occasionally sense the adjustments, especially when a scene on one continent morphed into a scene on the other continent, the actors handled the challenge well and seemed comfortable with the long walks to entrances and exits.<\/p>\n

Emotions are intense throughout the play, ranging for despair to depression to anger to fear to acceptance and gratitude. Each actor understands his or her character\u2019s emotions and projects them \u2013 and the changes to them \u2013 clearly. The director, Jessina Cheffins, well-known in the Winnipeg theatre scene, has adeptly captured these emotions in her efficient and effective staging.<\/p>\n

Paul Bailey\u2019s young daughter, Dorothy, plays an innocent foil to the adult fears, only vaguely aware of what her father is actually experiencing in the war. Isabel Haderer, who has played this character recently in a radio production, deftly modulates her journey from innocence to awareness.<\/p>\n

I cried. I don\u2019t generally cry at the theatre, so this surprised me. More than that, it spoke of the effectiveness of the cast and crew in bringing the realities of this play onto the stage.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t be a spoiler but do pay attention to the curtain call and the different emotions that play inside you as you have to decide whether or not — and then when — to applaud.<\/p>\n

Sharon Hamilton<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Letters Parachuting Camel Productions—Alto – Portage Place Letters takes place on two continents during the Second World War. While it follows Winnipegger Paul Bailey\u2019s war experiences, it highlights the impact of the war on his family, friends, and fellow soldiers. Told through letters, separated in time between the minimum of two months it takes for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[781],"tags":[869],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyrevue.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyrevue.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyrevue.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyrevue.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyrevue.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyrevue.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2472,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyrevue.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2471\/revisions\/2472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyrevue.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyrevue.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyrevue.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}