Marion Bridge: Good acting but a script that often drags.

Welcome to a very dysfunctional family brought together by imminent death. Three sisters, Agnes, Theresa and Louise, assembled to care for their dying mother, reveal their insecurities, variances in memories of events and, most of all, hostility to each other.

Each of the three is deeply flawed, filled with resentment and hiding from the world in her own way. Agnes had escaped from the Cape Breton home by going west to begin an unsuccessful acting career in Toronto, drinking her way into oblivion — as her mother had done while the girls were growing up. Theresa, the “good” middle sister, is literally cloistered from the world since she became a nun, but is now in the midst of a crisis of faith. Meanwhile, the youngest sibling, Louise — officially regarded as the strange one — stayed at home. Her safety net is daytime television and a love of automobiles.

To add to the strain of the renewed togetherness among the three, their father wants to see them. Divorced from their mother long ago, he is now aphasic and living with a very young partner (and, as the girls find out, another man who is assumed to be her lover).

To add to the domestic melodrama, Agnes decides to reconnect with the daughter her mother forced her to surrender for adoption when she was a teenager and, in so doing, comes to understand the power of motherhood.

Naturally, it takes a considerable time to unload all the emotional baggage that the three have been carrying for so many years. However, despite three good performances and some beautifully sung segments in the Three Sisters Theatre Company production, directed by Bronwyn Steinberg, Marion Bridge does not fulfill the apparent intent of rebuilding a believably solid family unit. Playwright Daniel MacIvor has simply included too much negativity in the script for it to be swept away by tossing a handful of post-it notes in the air, as happens in the final moments.

The script, particularly hampered by three lengthy monologues, frequently drags. One of the conventions employed is for the sisters to slide into each other’s vocabulary and interests. This, too, is hard to accept. As presented through this production, it is difficult to understand why the 1998 play and its movie adaptation enjoyed success in the past.

The Three Sisters Theatre Company production of Marion Bridge continues to February 21, 2015.

 

Marion Bridge

By Daniel MacIvor

Three Sisters Theatre Company

Director: Bronwyn Steinberg

Set: Andrea Steinwand

Lighting: David Magladry

Sound: Robin Guy and Bronwyn Steinberg

 

Cast:

Agnes……………………………………………….Robin Guy

Theresa……………………………………………..Shawna Pasini

Louise………………………………………………Cindy Beaton

Voice-overs…………………………………………Paul and Vivian Melsness