Her name is Matchstick, and she lives in an undesirable country. But this is her play and so she is free to cast herself as the hero. After all, she is a poor orphan and so she must be destined to rise against all odds. When she meets Alik, a stranger from far away, she is convinced that this must be the fairytale she has been waiting for.

Yet—as with all great fairytales—something lurks below the surface of the story, and the dramatic irony is darkly delicious. Even as the veneer of Matchstick’s musical fairytale world starts to crack, the audience is still left with a surprise that will take them by storm. It’s a slight of hand that subtly permeates the very fabric of the play, endowing it with a palpable tension. This clever manipulation of the audience is a credit to Nathan Howe’s strength at conceiving a calculated story.

It’s bolstered by a creative team that have imagined an enveloping backdrop for this fairytale-gone-wrong. David Granger’s set gives the impression of a band shell tucked away in a magical forest. Jagged trees with thick boughs frame the main stage, and instruments are perched around the playing space waiting to be swept up by Alik (Nathan Howe) or Matchstick (Lauren Holfeuer). Behind that, a scrim endows the stage with depth. Beautiful illustrations are projected onto the scrim (Jessica Gabriel and Chloe Ziner) and it becomes another playing space where the actors use their shadows to become a part of moving pages in a story-book. Dark, moody lighting (Bill McDermott) furthers the tension in the plot. The quirky fairytale stage-world is visually rich, musical, and mysterious.

…

Read More Read More