Live and in person at the Red Sandcastle Theatre, 922 Queen St. E, Toronto, Ont. Until March 18, 2023
Note: I first saw these plays when they streamed on demand as part of the Ottawa Fringe Festival in 2021. I was delighted to see them live and in person last night (March 7, 2023). I am revising the review from 2021 to reflect aspects of the vibrant live production.
Written by various writers, listed below.
Directed by Mary Ellis
Performed by Margo MacDonald
Lighting Design by Laura Wheeler
Sound Design by Alli Harris
Described as “a Triptych of Uncanny Abduction” involving: “a school haunted by troubled children, the mysterious disappearance of a friend in the woods and an encounter with the unknown on open waters,” these three descriptions just prick your interest and the plays do the rest to hold you in their grip.
The three monologues that make up Dressed as People are: Skinless by Kelly Robson, The Shape of My Teeth by Amal El-Mohtar and Repositioning by A.M. Dellamonica. Dressed as People is produced by Parry Riposte Productions, and all the artists are proudly queer. Their previous production was the wonderful The Elephant Girls by Margo MacDonald about a notorious girl-gang that terrorized London, England for 100 years. Two of the three plays in Dressed as People deal with queer themes and relationships.
All three plays are directed by Mary Ellis and they are performed by Margo MacDonald.
The costumes for each of the three plays hang on three hangers that are suspended from the flies. Margo MacDonald will put on each costume and a wig, if necessary, for each play. She transforms beautifully for each play, dissolving into the character.
Skinless
Written by Kelly Robson
In 1989, while teaching Canadian Literature at a university in Edmonton, a nun and professor, (named Dr. Sheedy or Sister Susan) reveals her past as a young instructor at a haunted school full of troubled children in 1950s Ireland. “Haunted school full of troubled children” isn’t the half of what went on in that school.
Sister Susan calmly engages the students telling them they will study Canadian stories in her English literature class. She says that “students rarely read Canadian books, “now you will be forced to.”
As Sister Susan, Margo MacDonald says that stunning line with such calm and understatement you are caught unawares (MacDonald has a dandy way of doing that in all three plays). She notes a surprise in the students when she tells them she is both a nun and a professor. She is not in the traditional habit and wimple. Here hair is short and blonde. She wears black slacks, a crisp white blouse and black jacket with a prominent cross hanging down in front of her white blouse. “You’re surprised to see me dressed as people” she says. This sense of the normalcy of things that seem exotic and different peppers all three plays.
Sister Susan always wanted to be a nun. She did her training in Ireland in the 1950s at a church named St. Mary’s where she taught the girls. She said ‘I especially love the students I can’t help, no matter how hard I try.” One such student kept trying to escape over the wall near the laundry of the church. Sister Susan was always surprised at how the student could get over the wall, what with being so heavily pregnant.
I suck air when I hear this. I know what this place is. St. Mary’s is one of the notorious Magdalene laundries overseen by the Catholic Church. They were run in Ireland from the 18th Century to the late 20th century. They were also established in other countries. Young women, pregnant and unmarried, would be taken to one of these churches by their fathers, brothers or boyfriends and left there. They would work in the laundry under terrible conditions, working in corrosive materials, lye soaps without benefit of gloves. Their hands would burn until the skin was raw. When they came to term their babies were taken away, never to be seen again. In one instance a mass grave was found with bones from more than 100 corpses. (Echoes of the horrible news of the bodies of 215 Indigenous children found in a mass grave at a residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia, also run by the Catholic Church). The young women would remain there because their families shunned them.
In Skinless, Sister Susan said that the young women spent four hours in school and six hours working in the laundry. She was particularly taken with this one young woman who tried to escape. Sister Susan staunchly followed the rules of the Church but still took pity on the girl. The girl was found one night clawing at the ground of a hidden area of the grounds. We found out what was there later and it’s chilling.
Kelly Robson’s writing is vivid, stark and startling. She floats a line in so effortlessly and Margo MacDonald’s delivery is so subtle, understated and lacking in judgement, that the juxtaposition of the calm and the horrifying is like a smack in the face. Kudos to director Mary Ellis for her sure hand. Sister Susan says that as a punishment she would “strap the young woman’s hands skinless.” It’s suggested that this young woman might have had a sister who had been at the church earlier. Sister Susan says, “…one sister leaves home and father starts in on the rest.” Two pregnant sisters arrived “one month apart.” Sucking air again.
A stunning story, beautifully done, realizing all its horror.
The Shape of My Teeth
Written by Amal El-Mohtar,
For The Shape of My TeethMargo MacDonald puts on a long curly wig and a full, long coat with red lining. A stool is entwined with wood suggesting a forest. Loved that detail.
In 1827 a woman reflects on her best friend’s mysterious disappearance in Mortimer Forest on the Welsh border. She refuses to be left behind.
A woman tells of her great friendship with her friend Sophie. They were fast friends from girlhood. They know their deep affection for each other is not of the ‘ordinary’ kind. They know their parents want nothing more than for the two girls to marry two brothers and be close as couples. That won’t happen because the women don’t want to marry men.
There was a forest close by, foreboding, perhaps. Intriguing? Definitely. It was rumored to be full of fairies, or the fantastical characters found in stories and books. As the woman tells us as: “What they didn’t know, but would learn soon enough, the forest had no taste for men—girls though…..”
One of the girls suggested they run away and live as they wanted. It was suggested they run away to Canada (I accept this as poetic license since “Canada’ did not exist by that name in 1827). As the women got older their intense love for each other and the efforts to hide it from the outside world, took its toll. Sophie did something drastic and leaves her friend behind. But her friend was so passionate, obsessive in her love, that she refuses to be left behind.
Amal El-Mohtar has created a story of mysticism, intrigue and mystery. She has created the forest as a place of danger and enticement. Her language is full dazzling descriptions, turns of phrases and coded queer references from the times. El-Mohtar has written a compelling story of passion and obsession.
Margo MacDonald has imbued the woman initially with a calm, tempered attitude until later in the play when she refuses to hide her passions. She rages at the world in which Sophie has left her and her determined fierceness at the end is compelling, mesmerizing and dangerous.
Repositioning
By A.M Dellamonica
For this Margo MacDonald wore a short-sleeved shirt, buttoned to the neck and skinny tie.
In the present day, a seasoned entertainer on the lesbian cruise circuit grapples with memories of an encounter with the unknown while on a Pacific Ocean repositioning cruise, headed to Vancouver, B.C. from Sydney, Australia.
Erica Prince is a lesbian comedienne down on her luck and needs a job. She is preparing an audition tape of her act for an agent in the hopes of getting back on the lesbian circuit. Margo MacDonald plays Erica as brash, overly cheerful and accommodating. She does not wear a wig. Her patter seems a bit desperate and mannered. She gives asides to the camera in explanation to the person who will watch it.
Erica was on a previous cruise and there was an incident on her day off. She drank too much and when she woke up in her cabin she was soaking wet. It seems she fell overboard—no she did not jump and try to kill herself, she assures the camera!–and was saved by a mermaid. The mermaid came to life on board and a relationship formed. (This can’t be a spoiler alert since that relationship was so integral to the story).
Erica admits that she has intimacy issues but the bond between Erica and her mermaid is so strong and intense that it continues. The mermaid has issues as well. They try and solve each other’s problems. Promises are made. Erica needs this cruise job in order to keep her promise to her mermaid.
A.M. Dellamonica has created a fantastical story that makes you think it might be real in a way. Again, her language of coded queer references is not intimidating and adds colour to the narrative. Margo MacDonald creates just enough nervous energy in Erica you can’t help but root for her in her quest.
It’s good to see Margo MacDonald performing here in Toronto for a change—she is such a gifted actor. All three stories are a huge accomplishment and well worth your time.
Produced by Parry Riposte Productions
Plays until March 18, 2023.
Running Time: 75 minutes (no intermission)