THEATRE REVIEW

OCTOBER 2024 | Volume 244

 

Production image

The Fugitives.

Ridge
by Brendan McLeod & The Fugitives
Firehall Arts Centre
Oct. 26-Nov. 3
From $30
www.firehallartscentre.ca or 604-689-0926
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Ridge is a remarkable show—the best theatre piece about World War One since Billy Bishop Goes to War. Powerful and smart with heartbreakingly beautiful music, it’s also a revelation, an eye-opening revisionary look at Canadian myths surrounding the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

In various formats, Ridge has been performed across the country for years. It was originally supposed to play at the Firehall in 2020 but that production was scuttled by Covid. This is its too-brief Vancouver premiere. Don’t miss it.

Accompanied by his folk band The Fugitives, Brendan McLeod talks about his obsession with the 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge in which Canadian soldiers captured a rise of land from the Germans at the cost of over 10,000 casualties. His charming, low-key narrative carefully and thoughtfully examines some of the elements of the battle and its aftermath that have either been obscured by time or covered over. After each chunk of narrationa band member reads a striking excerpt from a wartime diary or historical text, and the band plays a brief elegiac song that speaks directly or indirectly to the point McLeod has just made.

McLeod wants us to understand the full reality of the horror that was that war, and especially what the young soldiers, what he calls “the children,” endured. It’s not just the usual—the terror of charging into machine gun fire across open land, the mud and rats and carnage of the trenches, the non-stop mind-crushing artillery barrages, the poison gas, the political hypocrisy. He also focuses on the 17-year-old Canadian soldiers executed for desertion and the thousands of Canadian soldiers who had to wait months after the war’s end, under horrific conditions and with horrendous consequences, to be sent home.

His growing anger as he learned more and more about what actually happened, as opposed to the official and unofficial myths about how Canada “came of age” because of battles like Vimy that supposedly brought us together as one proud collective, climaxes when he visits the Vimy memorial in France. It’s a brilliant, shattering story.

And the music is utterly haunting. Along with McLeod, who sings sparingly and plays guitar, The Fugitives are Adrian Glynn (musical director – guitar, blues harp, vocals), Carly Frey (violin, vocals) and Christopher Suen (banjo, vocals). The songs are nearly all WW1-vintage, written by soldiers as parodies or protests, with melodies rewritten by McLeod and Glynn, and new arrangements by the band.

Glynn’s high keening voice, Frey’s mournful violin and Suen’s distinctive banjo create a dynamic sound, and the vocal harmonies are spectacular. It’s no surprise that their album of this music, Trench Songs, was nominated for a Canadian Juno Award and voted Best Folk Album by the German Critics Association.

Credit director Julia Course for the elegantly simple staging. Jonathan Kim’s deeply contrasting lighting effectively focuses our attention and helps shape the moods.

At only 75 minutes, Ridge is a masterclass in efficient, unadorned storytelling reinforced by the affective power of exquisite music. It should be part of every Remembrance Day commemoration. Lest We Forget—or misremember.

 

 

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vancouverplays

Vancouver's arts and culture website providing theatre news, previews and reviews