It’s Fringe Festival in Toronto, and I managed to catch one play. Actually, to be honest, I forgot about the Toronto Fringe until I saw the vouchers for free tickets in my laundry room. The play, “Ever“, is also somewhat science related, so all the more reason to go and blog about it.
Ever is set in Sioux Lookout, a very small town very very far north. The main character, Emily, has just graduated high school and has to tell her friend Dave that she is going to Toronto in the fall to study astronomy. He doesn’t want her to leave, and neither does her mom, who turned alcoholic after Emily’s and Dave’s fathers both died in a canoe accident five years earlier. Emily, being interested in science and academia, is an outcast in the small town, and even her mother calls her a “weirdo”.
The playwright, Jonathan Hoss, has a background in science: he studied engineering and physics at UofT, and he weaves the science into the story very naturally. The astronomy is light, but the science connections are significant enough. For example, a scientific calculator played a life-changing role in Emily’s social life, as little things like that sometimes do. And Dave makes exactly the kind of jokes non-science people tease their geeky friends with – it was all very familiar.
Whoever of the cast/crew lives in my building, thanks for the ticket! I’m going to do laundry again on Sunday, so say hi if you see the girl who – like Emily – avoids making eye contact with strangers.
