I wanted to get that out of the way because this play is not really about those events. Though the issues of gay rights and the morality of corporate sponsorship of activist causes (one that recently affected Edmonton when the Pride Parade this year was labeled, on Facebook, as the “TD Canada Trust Gay Pride Parade”) are important and topical, they could easily be exchanged with just about any cause and just about any well-meaning outsiders combined with trying-to-live-their-lives insiders to that cause.

These events are just used as a frame for a story about people who get caught up in something bigger than themselves. And that’s what really matters here. Every character in the play is faced with their innocent desires turning their lives upside down as they become the focus of a major controversy. The characters want to find peace with their past but get caught up in the blaring noise of activism.

In that respect, the play is excellent. It creates compelling characters who are well acted by the cast. The production design looks far more expensive than it probably is, and for the most part the expansive multimedia (four very expensive projectors are used to create the visual touches the play) is well used and effective.

If it were only that, I would give this play 5 stars. Unfortunately, the play manages to be more ambitious than it can deliver on a couple of points. The first, and easiest to explain, is that for a play about gay people there is very little actual gayness. It suffers from the same problem a lot of media about gay couples does, and I can sum it up thusly: Straight people have sex, gay people flirt. We see the two straight people in the play in their underwear at least twice, while the gay men stay fully clothed and rarely do more than reach in for a peck on the cheek. I feel like this is pandering to a straight audience, but also that it shouldn’t really be necessary at this point in this medium. I also feel that it undermines the authenticity of the story as well as the credibility of the relationship.

The next problem, for me, is the inner monologue of the main character. It seems strange that it should be represented by a drag queen. Someone else who saw this play told me they felt like it was an attempt to make the play ‘more gay,’ and I can’t help but agree. Her presence never really added anything to the plot but a highly stereotypical queen voice. Possibly it was intended as comic relief, but mostly the jokes were too over the top for the tone of the play.

And last, but not least, there is a metaphor that runs through the entire play and culminates in a large multimedia display towards the end. Unfortunately, the display itself looks underproduced and feels painfully unnecessary to the plot. It doesn’t tie in in any meaningful way, it’s just there and gives an excuse for a loud noise at the climax of the play. I can’t say much more about this without spoiling the play, but suffice to say that you will probably know it when you see it.

But overall, I really liked this play and definitely recommend it. There’s a 2-for-1 ($13 each) Tuesday next week, as well as a bunch of other normal showings until the end of next weekend ($25). You can buy tickets at the door or from their website. Go see it!

A Year of Winter worked really well for me. It’s set up in two very clearly delineated Acts, a year apart from each other. A particular mental breakdown sets the two acts apart and it is almost as if it was two short plays rather than one long play. It’s hard not to point out that I preferred the first act to the second, for its bare, no punches pulled, portrayal of mental illness and its inextricable relationship to the act of creation in the form of art. But I also don’t think it would have been complete without the second act to give us perspective on the insanity. To show us the schizophrenic break that precipitated act 1.

Two devices were used in the play to facilitate hiding the truth the play draws towards. First, the masks. In his blog, Scott Sharplin seemed very worried that the masks would seem pretentious or draw people out of the play. But I think in the end, the way he brings them into the story long before their use helps avoid either of those pitfalls. It also helps that the first use of a mask to denote a character shift is an over-the-top caricature of a radio personality. It’s hard to worry about the mask when such a flamboyant character is on the stage. And by the time a more reasonable, understated character is on the stage using a mask, it doesn’t matter anymore.

The other device is portmanteaus. The characters in the play have their own little language made of joining words together into new or existing words. It’s a code that only they understand and that the audience is forced to learn as the characters rediscover their lost meanings. It also lends a realistic playfulness to their relationship that, in moments of clarity, contrasts the starkness of their illness.

Although the ending was touching and very powerful to me, I think it could have been improved. The first act has us looking at the inside of this relationship. From the point of view of the people inextricably entwined in schizophrenia, one way or another. Act two starts off by giving us an outside perspective, showing us the view from outside. Through the masks we finally see characters who were only presented off stage left, never seen, only occasionally heard or heard of. But in the final part of the second act, we seem to shift back to the insane point of view, and the shift is jarring.

The other downside to this play, from my point of view, was that while it seems well researched (mentions of an actual modern drug for treatment of schizophrenia in addition to the believable presentation of paranoia help lend credibility to the research) it does seem to skate the edge of an age-old misunderstanding of the disease that I won’t explain here (as it would be a bit of a spoiler). I do not think this is intentional, but it could be taken that way.

The acting was all around quite good. Garett Ross as Terry and all of the masked characters pulled off the switching of characters well, doing each of them convincingly even if a couple of them were (necessarily) a little over the top. Tracy Penner as Alice did a good job as well, though in moments of non-lucidity had a tendency to play things a little over the top. She also seemed very familiar, though I can’t remember where from. I didn’t recognize any of the plays listed to her credit in the program, but perhaps she was in a fringe play I’ve seen.

Overall, I was quite impressed. The play ran the gamut of emotional responses, hitting the funny bone and plucking the heartstrings equally and appropriately. It kept its secrets well until the 11th hour and then revealed them with resonance. I anticipate Scott’s next play, about Louis Riel and the Northwest Rebellion: The Burning Blood.