The chatter of excitement could be heard all around the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre as the Great Canadian Theatre Company (GCTC) kicked off their sold-out Canadian premiere of Fly Me to the Moon, penned by Northern Irish playwright Marie Jones.
Fly Me to the Moon, directed by John P. Kelly, centres around two female care workers, Frances and Loretta, who discover that the man they have been taking care of for a number of years has died.
The man’s death comes at a particularly troublesome time because both of the heroines have been having economic troubles that the man’s recent winning bet at a horse race would eradicate.
The show ran about an hour and 45 minutes long, with an intermission in the middle.
The play is a black comedy with an Irish twist and a tone that switches between comedic and intensely dark, keeping the spectator on the edge of their seat.
“I want them to not know whether to laugh or cry,” Kelly said.
The inherent challenge associated with the play was the mandatory use of the Belfast dialect, which does not sound like a typical Irish accent.
This Northern Irish accent is more comparable to a Scottish accent than anything else.
“The Belfast accent that we had to use was a bit of a challenge to learn, although learning accents is a challenge I always love,” said Margo MacDonald, who played Loretta.
Both of the actors, MacDonald (Loretta) and Mary Ellis (Frances), had to traverse several different emotions in order to fully portray their vastly complicated characters.
In the play, Frances was the stronger of the two characters and because of this, she made most of the key decisions that lead to the unfortunate series of events through which the characters found themselves becoming more and more desperate.
“Frances is the more aggressive and pragmatic one, who comes up with most of the schemes,” Ellis said.
Frances struggles with the pressure of having to support her family with a low-paying job, which leads her to make many unfortunate decisions to better her economic prospects.
The other character in the play, Loretta, is younger and more easily agitated than Frances. Loretta wants to provide her children with all the experiences they seem to be interested in (trips to Euro Disney and soccer tournaments) but knows she doesn’t have enough money.
“Loretta’s more of the follower, she’s not the one that comes up with all the plans, but she does have her moments of taking a stand,” added MacDonald.
Loretta is more controlled by guilt and tends to be more likely to act tentatively in the face of danger. She tries to undo her unseemly actions but finds it impossible, based on the web of lies she and Frances have strung together.
The play runs until Nov. 18.
