The price of looking back

No amount of updates can prepare you for Catalyst Theatre’s world premiere of The Soul Collector. There is nothing like it out there.

Director/composer/writer Jonathan Christenson and scenographer Bretta Gerecke have created a vision of perpetually ice-covered landscapes, dark shadows and evil spirits that slither within reach.

It’s as if the duo has stepped into the soul of a woman suffering from depression, yanked it into the open and peeled away the layers for the world to see.

From the moment you step foot into the glimmering cavernous Westbury Theatre, there’s a prickly sense of foreboding permeating the air.

In this frozen landscape, Gerecke has designed an alley stage that doubles as both the road to despair and path of salvation. One end of this barren highway of nightmares is outfitted with a coffin-shaped door. At the other end is a playful, whimsical ramp suggesting joy and light.

On each side of the icy highway, gigantic twisted trees hang, looking like a demon’s grasping arthritic hands poised to kidnap an innocent.

And in a sense, the icy northern city of Cold Comfort has already sent Memory McQuaid (Karyn Mott) into a tailspin. She has lost her memory and is emotionally frozen in a timeless capsule. Garbed in black and white, her red hair the only colour in life, Memory is a wretched soul gripped by a weight she cannot explain.

Scared and exhausted from fighting a lonely battle, she has forgotten how to live life. In a moment of despair, she drops to her knees, curls up in the snow and succumbs to the frigid temperatures.

But life is full of second chances. In this dark world of broken dreams and hairpin curves, the ĂĽber-talented Catalyst team offers hope, a ray of sunshine that ultimately overcomes Memory’s deadening futility.

In this supernatural northern tale, she awakens on a morgue slab. The key to crawling out of this personal hell is Gideon Glumb (Benjamin Wardle), a young boy born from two lovers’ great passion.

Standing side-by-side Gideon and the storybook’s narrator Mortimer Man (Clinton Carew) a.k.a. the blind mortician, Memory faces off with the icy spectre of the Soul Collector towards an uncharted destiny.

There’s a bold, surreal atmosphere to this show ranging from the enormous stage imagery and the poetic dialogue rolling out with enchanting power to the heart-gripping songs and the stylized physical movement.

The narrator, the top-hatted Carew, sets the lyrical tone with his deep, lush voice deliberately amplified by echoing microphones. He is the story guide, the visionary. Carew’s powerful restrained manner sweeps us into the saga.

Mott as Memory, the tortured young woman unable to find peace within herself, brings a haunted, naive quality to her performance.

And Elinor Holt as the Soul Collector, is on the surface a monstrous being projected by tattered clothing and varnished Phyllis Diller-type wig. But her back-story is one of the play’s delightful surprises giving Holt extra room to play with character.

Former St. Albert Children’s Theatre alumnus Garett Ross is the mesmerizing Popcorn Pete, the street prophet of pain and panic, a man imprisoned by his dreams and nightmares. Ross is a superb character actor and imbues Pete with a blend of fanaticism and kookiness that endears him to all.

And Eric Wigston, a former local musical theatre instructor, nails it as the young Thorvald Jesperson, a young composer who writes the big hit The Constant Romancer, only to discover his great love is marrying another. Wigston’s performance glides from frustration and anger to shyness, tenderness and anguish within a few minutes – a push for any young actor.

Ultimately The Soul Collector grapples with despair, fear, love, heartbreak and finally hope and redemption. And if the Catalyst team had any fears or doubts about this project, they’ve been redeemed by the crowds’ thundering applause.