Where the River Meets the Sea: where the past meets the present
Patti Flather's *Where the River Meets the Sea* is a play about an abused single mother escaping from the Rez with her daughter to rebuild their lives in North Vancouver. As usually happens with stories of this nature, the past comes back to haunt them. As they pertain to family and heritage, the themes are basic but because of the local setting and Musqueam characters, the piece has a subtext that explores the intricacies of local real estate and native land deals. Patti Flather's play is decent but in the end fails to really rise above your average movie of the week.
The strong point of the play is the frenetic first half. Director Brenda Leadley does a good job of pacing the actors through the basic set up which includes Lu-Anne (Carmen Moore) and her daughter Jade (Kim Harvey) moving to North Vancouver to open up their dream clothing store. Enter Dayne (David Patrick Flemming), a real estate/business man who enters their lives as Lu-Anne's suitor to the dismay of Jade, who was brought up to distrust men. Jade seeking solace finds a spot near the river where she mysteriously hears her Grandmothers singing to her. This is significant because the land is Musqueam and Jade starts to ask questions about her past and her heritage that have been hidden from her. Added to the mix is that this is the very spot where Dayne's real estate company plans to build condos. This only drives a further wedge between mother and daughter until a mysterious girl (Maija Tailfeathers) shows up in the store one day. She turns out to be Katrina the daughter of Lu-Anne's ex-husband and therefore Jade’s half sister. Lu-Anne fears her arrival may bring the return of her ex, whose abuse she had escaped from while living on the Res.
The plot is pretty basic but because of the pacing and wonderful, well rounded performances I was very much engaged wanting to see the resolution. The key for me was David Patrick Flemming as the only non native in the cast. His character could easily have slipped into a stock jerk role, but Flemming was able to round it out with a humorous awkwardness that balanced the strong dramatic work from Moore and Harvey. Moore was able to show the vulnerable side of having to live with past abuse while Harvey had me completely convinced that she really was a sassy 15 year old with a strong chip on her shoulder (she's really 23).
While the second act answered all the questions from the first, it unfortunately didn't have the same pace and thus the stakes didn't feel as high. The mysterious stranger, Katrina, does eventually find her half-sister Jade, but instead of furthering the threat of an appearance from the abusive father, they just share stories of their memories of him. Lu-Anne and Dayne do have a brief separation after a falling out over the handling of Jade, but it's clear they'll get back together, because this is a story about remembering your past and learning from it. If they had stayed apart they would have feuded over the development of condos on Musqueam land and it would have become more overtly political play, but instead they do reconcile and come to a compromise to keep the integrity of the beach by building less condos, and building a permanent monument to honour the Musqueam people who had lived on the land.
*Where the River Meets the Sea* does have a good message, especially for people of multicultural Vancouver, and would be a nice history play for the many visitors that we will be getting over the next year. However, to create a lasting piece of theatre about our city and its people, Flather will probably have to dig a bit deeper in her next outing.
_Where the River Meets the Sea by Patti Flather, part of The Third Street Theatre Series, March 19-April 4 at 8pm; Directed by Brenda Leadlay; featuring Carmen Moore, Kim Harvey, Maija Tailfeathers and David Patrick Flemming. Set and costumes by Karyn McCallum, lights by Eugene Mendelev and sound by Tyler Shepherd, It also features singer Brenda Hanson. For more information go_ "here":http://www.phtheatre.org/index.htm