Growing up, I wasn’t really aware or immersed myself in Canadian content knowingly. Things that I listened to or watched that were Canadian content blurred with things that weren’t. So when my friends heard that I never listened to Alannis Morissette before, they were shocked. One friend thought it would be a good idea to take me to see Jagged Little Pill and it quickly turned from a good idea to one of the best ideas ever. The musical follows the story of a picture perfect suburban white family in Connecticut: workaholic father, the helicopter mom, the golden child son, and the adopted daughter. As the show progresses, we start to see that mask crack as they all individually face issues like substance abuse, PTSD, sexual assault, and gender identity.
This was the best show I’ve seen ToToToo put on and I think it’s hands down one of the most solid shows that has been put out by a local company in the last couple years. It would land in one of my top 5 shows and honestly it’s a contender for top 3. I’ve saved both the musical album and a good log of songs to my favourites playlist because of this show.
I’m going to start with callouts on outstanding actors because of how powerful these stars were. Kay Vukelic (Jo) absolutely crushed this role. Every time they appeared on stage and especially whenever they were singing, you just were enraptured with their performance. During their biggest moment in “You Oughta Know” you could just feel the absolute rage they felt. As a queer adult who has been a queer child before, we all know that pain when someone who we thought loved and understood us falls in love with someone else. One thing that jukebox musicals usually fail is that they Broadway-ify the songs and it becomes too clean and pretty; however, Kay kept that gritty grunge feeling and that only added more to that angst and anger.
Stefania Wheelhouse (Mary Jane “MJ” Healy) made me think of Clarie Dunphy from Modern Family, but more restrained and uninhibited at the same time. It was an exemplary performance in the way Stefania that you saw all the little minutiae add up eventually to the audience finding out why MJ is the way she is. At the climax of her story in “Uninvited” was electric and hair-raising, not only because of the vocals and the acting, but the choreography. Opposite of Stefania in this moment was Grace Lister, who played this mirrorverse version of MJ. The two were in such perfect sync and elevated this show to that next level. That whole time I couldn’t blink because of just the pure artistry and emotion being displayed. This would be a moment I could see as a music video.
One of the best things about the show is the choreography. One of the things I thought was brilliant was the mixing of popping, hip hop, vogueing, and classical/contemporary. This mix complements the themes of the show through the styles used: the dichotomy of freedom and rebellion vs. restraint and conformity. One complaint is that there were moments where the choreography was overwhelming. The unstructured chaos at times melded well with some of the moments, but other times it detracted away from the action. The best choreography I’ve seen in any show recently was during “Forgiven”. Holy crap. Such beautiful use of candle lights and movement and tableaus. I honestly was just in awe the whole number with the choreography.
At my first show at the GCTC, I was amazed at the space and how well it was used. Projection design from Jacob Atkinson and lighting design from Mark MacDonald really lit up the stage and created visuals that complemented the action on stage. The usage of projections is something I’m beginning to dislike in lieu of set pieces; however, for this space and for this show, I think Jacob did a really good job to not make them too overbearing. The show also didn’t rely on the projections to create the world; rather, they used it to augment the world.
The biggest problem I had with the show is something that I would’ve hoped to be resolved by the night I saw the show. In live theatre, there are so many variables that can be planned for and even with all that planning, things can still go astray. So when it comes to certain aspects of live theatre, I’m a little more accommodating. That being said, the balancing of the band and the microphones were way off throughout the show where there were times the lyrics were overpowered by the band. Add to that, microphones weren’t turned on or off at correct times, which led to dropped lines and at one point (during the run I saw) laughing and talking being heard from the green room/backstage. During “Thank U”, there was supposed to be this sort of back and forth in the lyrics, but only one side could be heard because mics weren’t turned on. It’s truly a shame that this is the glaring issue that held this show back from being near perfect.
Some smaller shoutouts, Lexi Sorel and Andrea Romero Cartas (Bella Fox) gave such a chilling performance during the haunting recounting of the traumatic events in “Predator”. Also to Maggie Paquette as Dr. Gardner, such a small moment of comedic relief that was gave the audience some time to breathe and laugh.
ToToToo has done such an amazing job with this production and making it pertinent to the current news cycle. I wouldn’t be surprised if this show was brought around again because of how expertly crafted it was and I would most definitely go see this show again. All who are involved should be extremely proud of what they created.
