Emily Pearlman and Nicolas Di Gaetano bite, punch and love each other as (fake) brothers and sisters should.

By Holly Gordon

Full disclosure: This is my first Ottawa Fringe Festival. Not for lack of interest, mind you; it’s simply my first summer in the city. So at last night’s opening, I took it pretty slowly ― I hear Fringe burnout is a nasty beast, and opted for sanity over caffeine-induced highs and sugar-crashing lows. That is, until I came out of LIVE From the Belly of a Whale’s sold out opening night. After seeing that magical performance, I’ve started the IV and am frantically plotting the next nine days.

LIVE From the Belly of a Whale, MiCasa Theatre

If everyone could have as much fun as Emily Pearlman and Nicolas Di Gaetano so evidently do while performing, the world would be a better place. The two creators and performers of MiCasa Theatre, who brought Countries Shaped Like Stars to the 2009 Ottawa Fringe and grabbed Outstanding Overall Production, are simply magical to watch.

Pearlman and Di Gaetano don suspenders, goggles and a childlike wonder to take the audience on the journey of two siblings ― and a third egg sibling, which makes an admittedly odd, though mostly silent, addition. Pearlman plays Sis and Di Gaetano plays Brother, telling a story through four acts that include Ancient History, Historical Fiction, Modern Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction. That story is of close-knit siblings who play taxonomy naming games as best friends, then separately journey to the moon and get swallowed by a whale. The separation occurs as within any sibling relationship, and the play touches on the siblings’ reconnection, or lack thereof.

A sense of wonderment comes from the child characters, but Pearlman and Di Gaetano take it seriously and in effect, so can the audience. Di Gaetano wrote original songs for LIVE, and both he and Pearlman have lovely voices; the way the two connect on stage makes the songs come alive. Pearlman’s expressive nature is captivating, and both her and Di Gaetano’s awareness of physical space and body language allows them to use clown and mime characteristics to tease out the humour ― and sadness ― that comes from sibling relationships.

A stunning set, by John Doucet, places double-jointed Sis in a box made of full and half glass-paned doors, so that each side opens and can be used in fun and silent ways with the lighting (design by Guillaume Houet). They somehow made intricate sea creatures out of water bottles, lending to the company’s DIY aesthetic. LIVE, directed by Patrick Gauthier, is a work-in-progress with a premiere scheduled for February, and it’s exciting to think of the possibilities.

As with any opening night, there were a few blunders. In the middle of a captivating silent piece where Brother is making a travel to the moon, Di Gaetano stops his hand motions and confesses he does not have the paper or flashlight he’s supposed to have in order to finish this scene. “Close your eyes,” he says. We stare at him. “No, seriously.” So we do. And after Di Gaetano’s apologies, he transports us without props.

And that’s the thing: The audience believes Pearlman and Di Gaetano have created this world. It is fascinating, creative, insightful, and we want to be there. Missing flashlights be damned ― this in-progress piece is worth seeing now. And when it opens in February.

Dying Hard, A Vagrant Theatre

Mikaela Dyke can be anyone. The actor, hailing from St. John’s, Newfoundland’s A Vagrant Theatre, transforms into five characters during Dying Hard, a verbatim theatre piece on fluorspar Newfoundland miners in the 1960s based on material from Elliott Leyton’s 1975 first-hand interviews.

That Dyke is talented is not the question; that Newfoundlanders are difficult to understand in a verbatim piece is more so the problem. Dyke places wire-framed glasses on the bridge of her nose and becomes Pat Sullivan, the first miner to tell his story. It’s impossible to find the bright-eyed Dyke in Pat ― when the miner’s on stage, Dyke’s eyes squint through her glasses, her right hand absentmindedly rubs her right knee and she leans forward in a way that indicates her back simply won’t straighten. And b’y, she sure can handle a Newfoundlander accent. But Pat’s story? Not so sure. While realistic, the accent’s too heavy, and since this verbatim interview is the first of five, it’s a tough entry point into Dying Hard.

Things progressively get better, though. After Pat comes Kevin, a miner who loved his job but is dying from multiple growths on his lungs. Then there’s Wanda, the wife of a miner who matter-of-factly says, “I’m the man and the woman since he got sick.” Harry is both fascinating and sad to watch ― Dyke uses her chair to sit as if she doesn’t have the strength to get up, and her breathing is deliberate and laboured, in tune with Harry’s sickness. Finally we meet Rebecca, the young widow who says, “You don’t die of silicosis; you perish.”

It’s heartbreaking storytelling, with fleeting moments of humour, and Dyke certainly is the master of disguise. The stories feel disjointed, though, and Dyke’s introduction to the play, and each character, is unnecessary. Getting to the heart of the play ― and character introductions ― would be better accessed through the content. Dyke’s performance is worth the watch, but Dying Hard takes a bit of work.