The Tale of a Town: the Ottawa portion of the show reveals disparate stories that remind us we are still one community

Toronto’s FIXT POINT theatre company is on a three-year, nationwide mission. Its goal: to remind us who we are by interviewing residents of cities and towns across Canada about their memories of their main street areas and then presenting the highlights of those interviews in mixed-media shows collectively called The Tale of a Town. FIXT POINT creates a new show for every city or town, drawing on local and other actors as collaborators and performers.

When The Tale of a Town Storymobile, a small, round-shouldered trailer outfitted with benches and audio equipment, arrived in Ottawa in mid-November, residents from Orleans, downtown and Wellington West contributed their memories inside it as well as online and by telephone. The FIXT POINT team quickly put together and rehearsed the show and this week performed it over three nights in those same three areas of the city. We attended the Friday night show at the in-the-round venue in Orleans – an empty retail site adjacent to the Shenkman Arts Centre. On stage performing multiple roles, singing and playing musical instruments: Ottawa performers Emily Pearlman, Patrick Gauthier and Katie Swift as well as visiting artists Adam Paolozza and Norah Sadava. Behind the scenes: FIXT POINT’s co-founders/play creators/directors Lisa Marie DiLiberto and Charles Ketchabaw.

Friday’s spirited and engaging show was built around the number 95 bus route which traverses a good part of the city and on which we were “riders.” With Gauthier as our chatty bus driver and the route playing out as a video projection in front of us, we watched the actors – all of them committed and a least a couple very good – perform vignettes many of which involved some audience interaction. We met Dave Smith, the live-wire founder of the legendary and now defunct Nate’s Deli on Rideau Street and a well-known local philanthropist plus his team of bossy, good-hearted waitresses as they enacted a typical day at the deli. We watched a trio of outgoing francophones from Orleans and an uptight Anglophone from downtown clamber aboard the bus and then deal with each other. We watched a very funny game show in which contestants made pitches for the city’s biggest planning blunder (winner: the now mercifully vanished Rideau Street bus mall).

There was also a singalong, the recorded voices of some of those who contributed their memories, and, when we got to the skit about Wellington West’s Carleton Tavern, a free beer for everyone.

One or two scenes overstayed their welcome, and at least a couple audience members were under the misapprehension that there would be three different shows in Ottawa each focusing on the area of the city where the interviews were conducted. Blame FIXT POINT’s difficult-to-navigate and not-always-explicit website for the latter.

Minor hitches aside, the Ottawa version of The Tale of a Town was funny, intimate and quick-paced. A couple of the sketches including the one about Dave Smith were first-rate. Most importantly, it brought together disparate stories and audience members to remind us that we are still one community.

Director: Lisa Marie DiLiberto

Associate director: Adam Paolozza

Sound and video designer/technical director: Charles Ketchabaw

Production assistant and dramaturge: Dylan Tate-Howarth

Performers: Emily Pearlman, Patrick Gauthier, Katie Swift, Adam Paolozza, Norah Sadava

Producer: Sarah Conn

Designer: Jahn Fawcett