Yearning for something more

As a company theatre, Yes is still in its infancy. But in its brief tenure, the company has produced several intelligent, edgy works that that not only re-examine universal truths, but also explore the function of theatre.

“We embrace material that is gritty and embraces cultural conversation,” says artistic director Heather Inglis.

She launches the new season with the award winning Bone Cage running Sept. 24 to Oct. 4 at La Cité Francophone.

St. Albert actor Karina Cox (Krista) and Byron Trevor Martin (Kevin), a former St. Albert Children’s Theatre instructor play major roles in this stirring drama.

Playwright Catherine Banks Bone Cage is rooted in Nova Scotia’s pillaged landscape. It’s a place where young people hate their lives, yet cannot escape its grip.

Banks centres the play on a group of characters that lead very bleak lives. Jamie works for the lumber industry and is about to get married in a few days to Krista, 17, a high school girl. He is desperate to leave the soul-crushing environment but knows his fiancĂ©e won’t go.

Krista is focused on marrying one of the town’s most popular men and the prestige it will bring. She wants to get Chicky, Jamie’s sister’s approval and is oblivious to adverse currents flowing around her.

“She is totally contented to be the perfect housewife and is obsessive in every detail. I’m certain Jamie is more ambitious than she is. I was thinking she’s inconsiderate in a naÄ‚Ĺ»ve way. She has her head in the clouds,” Cox reveals about Krista.

Chicky is having an affair with a married man yet remains protective of her younger brother and wishes Jamie would leave to make a better life.

Kevin, 18, is Krista’s older brother and Jamie’s best friend. An angry rabble-rouser he turns up badly beaten and abused. Throughout the play Kevin remains hopelessly in love with Chicky, a woman clearly too old for him.

“Kevin is a shit-disturber. He wants to be loved and accepted and he gets into a lot of fights. It’s the nature of men in the community. There’s not much to do except hitting mailboxes and drinking,” notes Martin of his character.

Perhaps the most bizarre character is Clarence, Jamie’s father, a man obsessed with bringing back Jamie’s kid brother from the dead.

“It is an exploration of how doing work that is destructive to the environment has catastrophic effects on people’s psychology. It’s about the cost frontline workers pay across the country. We don’t tend to think of it. We talk logging and the oil industry. But in my knowledge we have not seen an attempt to understand how it affects people,” Inglis explains.

Events create a combustible situation where emotional stakes are high. Although Banks’ Maritime subject matter is layered in darkness, her dialogue carries a lyrical poetic quality.

“She (Banks) believes people naturally speak in poetry, and she is trying to capture the poetry of street language,” Inglis says.

And it is the characters’ dialogue that speaks loudest even as they are trapped in a cage of their own making.