THEATRE REVIEW

MARCH 2024 | Volume 237

 

Production image

Photo by Chelsey Stuyt.

Sunrise Betties
by Cheyenne Rouleau
ITSAZOO Productions
Russian Hall, 600 Campbell St.
Feb. 21-Mar. 10
$30/$25/$20
www.itsazoo.org or 604-781-7329
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Cheyenne Rouleau’s powerful, intense new play is an exciting genre piece. Think David Mamet meets Goodfellas—only with women. The Russian Hall’s basement is the clubhouse where the Sunrise Betties, an all-female gang, hangs out in Vancouver’s East End in 1972 under the iron rule of matriarch Shirley (Patti Allan). Her Betties are four young women, all damaged goods, all veterans of broken families, juvenile detention and the street. Their loyalties to Shirley, to each other and to themselves are severely tested in the play under the pressure of threats from the outside and the introduction of a male cop into their midst. They’ll find it hard to know what exactly is true, and who may be betraying who.

Under the excellent direction of Jamie King, the cast rocks this ITSAZOO premiere. These are the kinds of parts women almost never get and even men rarely get to do on stage. And the environmental staging has the audience, seated amid the action, sharing in the visceral violence. Warning: you may end up splashed with stage blood.

We meet Gwen (Meaghan Chenosky) and “the new girl” Beth (Kaitlyn Yott), who are lovers, though Gwen is also having a relationship with Jim (Sebastien Archibald), the bent cop. Beth is quick with a knife and once, we hear, stabbed a guy in the dick. Kate (Kelsey Kanatan Wavey) and Suzie (Merewyn Comeau) come in high on adrenalin after ripping off a west side guy and torching his car. Kate, the house arsonist, has an especially violent backstory, and Suzie wields a mean baseball bat.

Trouble is, the guy they terrorized was a “Russo boy,” related to Vancouver’s most dangerous mobster, and they did it in Russo territory. In this town “territory is king,” so they are in big trouble. Later we learn that the drugs the gang is dealing are Russo’s. Shirley’s delicate arrangement with Russo is in real danger.

The tension and paranoia build as Jim stirs things up and Shirley returns to find that chaos has descended on the gang. Conflicts and jealousies among the women start to blow up, and the double- and triple-crosses compound. Without getting too specific, suffice to say that more corpses litter the stage at the end of Sunrise Betties than at the end of Hamlet. And I haven’t even mentioned Robert the cat.

I loved all the acting in this show. Allan is ferocious as Shirley and Comeau’s Suzie hilarious. Each clearly individualized character has their moment, and the ensemble work is especially impressive. The dialogue frequently overlaps as the characters, fight, argue, scream or screw around. King’s direction is sterling and I never saw an actor miss a beat. Sound designer Kate De Lorme’s period pop music is also a treat.

As admirable as this show is, it doesn’t have much of a point, except perhaps to say that women can be as violent, vulgar and messed up as men. I look forward to seeing Cheyenne Rouleau put her talents towards something more thematically complex—maybe her new solo play at The Cultch next month, Fat Joke.

 

 

 

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vancouverplays

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