Nancy Kenny stakes her way to your heart.

by Holly Gordon

Roller Derby Saved My Soul, Broken Turtle Productions

Meet Amy: a silver shoe-wearing, Buffy the Vampire Slayer-loving customer support assistant who enjoys plunking herself down with a bowl of (stale) popcorn and a wooden stake, quoting Buffy (in this case, season seven’s Touched as it plays over the studio speakers). Digging popcorn kernels out of her teeth with the otherwise useless stake, Amy absentmindedly wipes the kernel off of the pointy piece of wood and onto her pink-skirted knee.

“Vampire slaying would be a difficult career move,” she says.

And so begins our affair with this dorky, somewhat reserved but certainly loveable character in Nancy Kenny’s one-woman show, Roller Derby Saved My Soul. Kenny is both the play’s writer and performer (and it's directed by Tania Levy), and she spends an hour telling the mostly comic story of how roller derby, well, saved Amy’s soul. Roller Derby is certainly female-centric, but it’s with a refreshing breath that Kenny doesn’t worry about the female-ness that people whine about; it’s about geekdom, sibling relationships and what it means to find something that makes you happy (roller derby, in case you were wondering).

This is a show that Kenny’s been working on and writing about for some time, and one I’ve been looking forward to finally seeing. Opening night had a packed house, and Kenny owned that roller-skate-rocking stage – she knew both her script and cues, showcasing her talents as a comedic actor in writing, timing and action. While the ending feels a little too light (maybe too perfect?), the play hums along at a good pace.  

Roller Derby Saved My Soul is the kind of light-hearted, honestly funny story you want to find at Fringe – and Kenny has it for you, geared up in elbow pads and a mouth guard.

Old Legends, Bio-Punk Productions

Old Legends is a confusing hour of theatre. A one-woman play starring Emma Godmere, written and directed by James Fitzgerald, it’s supposed to be a dark comedy about Ottawa-dwelling Tara Thomas’s journey home to settle her mother’s Nova Scotia estate – a trip that ends in Tara discovering long-buried family secrets.

Godmere, playing Tara, is charming. A scene where she convincingly weaves three separate legends, or dark fairytales, is quite captivating, as Godmere uses the stage space and her expressions to separate time and tale. It’s one of the most interesting parts of the work and, coupled with its connection to the play’s conclusion, is a smart piece of theatre.

It’s the play’s verbosity, and lack of focus, that undermines those gems. Tara declares that “diving into what words mean is better than coffee and chocolate mixed together,” but by the second time he has Godmere recite a word’s definition, I was about done with the Coffee Crisp metaphor. The play too often declares its love for words, and the word-heavy script shows itself when Godmere has a few trouble spots with the lines.

A dance piece near the end seems out of place, and some of the narrative – particularly when Tara is reading from a childhood journal – are simply uninteresting. At the end of Old Legends, it feels as if Fitzgerald would have done well to chop a few scenes, and focus on the fairytales and secrets that get to the tragedy of the Thomas family.

Old Legends has work to do before it can entrance, and chill, its audience.

Last Gig of Lenny Breau, Colin Godbout

To fully enjoy Colin Godbout’s one-man show, Last Gig of Lenny Breau, it’s best to have a vested interest in Breau’s work and life. The Canadian music legend, who blended genres such as flamenco, country and classical with his finger-picking techniques, is at the centre of Godbout’s play as the actor embodies his interpretation of Lenny on the musician’s last gig, ending with speculation on Breau’s unsolved, and untimely, murder.

Godbout is hands-down a talented musician, and were this solely a music show dedicated to Lenny there’s no question you’d be satisfied; sitting in the Royal Oak on Laurier and listening to Godbout’s finger-picking and musical fusion with closed eyes is candy to the ears of any Lenny enthusiast.

As a play, though, Last Gig is lacking. For anyone unread on Breau’s history, the plot is choppy and not overly explained. Transitions between songs and times don’t have much finesse, and though Godbout appears to have necessary props to work into the play, they’re introduced quite awkwardly (and, in effect, unnecessarily).

Hearing Godbout speak on his development of the piece at play’s end, it’s evident that he has been a fan of Breau for decades and is certainly a knowledgeable actor to take on this project. Godbout constructs the thesis that Breau was heavily pressured when mentor Chet Atkins crowned Breau the “great white hope” of the guitar, leading to some of his uncertainty as an artist. It’s an interesting perspective, but not overly developed in the off-again, on-again portrayal of Breau in Last Gig.

If you align yourself with Breau enthusiasts, Last Gig is worth the time. If not, this play is too niche to take anything away.