by Dave Ross
Life in the Raw from Thick and Thin Theatre Productions was a welcome respite for me. I’ve been seeing comedy pretty much exclusively, and this story of a family in 1930s Montreal couldn’t be farther from that. The script (Barbara Larose) is very strong, with a minimum of extraneous material. The story itself is a painful one: very little food for the table, a prideful father, and a mother dying of cancer.
The performances are for the most part solid. Denise Norman does an excellent, fretful Kathleen who will do anything for her daughters, while Rick Jones’s William is a perfect counterpart to her. The daughters are the focus of the story, with Faith (Rielle Braid), Nellie (Kaitlin Lane) and Hope (Brianne Tucker) doing everything they can to care for their ailing mother while trying to advance hopes and dreams of their own. Special mention goes to Lane as Nellie. Her character experiences significant growth and change, and Lane executes this effortlessly. The entire cast has to sing, and all of them are strong vocally. A small quibble with the music is that the libretto doesn’t seem to match the music rhythmically in places, leading to what feels like run-on musical sentences with the emphasis falling on odd syllables. As a musician, I found this a touch jarring, but it’s a minor thing. There is no set designer credited in the program, but it was a versatile, unobtrusive set.
This is a strong show. It is definitely done in the raw, sparing no emotion as it tells its tale. Like most Fringe shows, it could use a bit of a polish, but it does remarkably well still. If you’re looking to see a musical that deals with some heavy subject matter, this is the show for you.
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