Arts in ReviewDirectors' Festival Review: Speak Now

Directors’ Festival Review: Speak Now

This article was published on April 27, 2012 and may be out of date. To maintain our historical record, The Cascade does not update or remove outdated articles.
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By Dessa Bayrock (The Cascade) – Email

Speak Now

By Seth Kramer
Directed by Cassy Penner (UFV)

Running time: Paired with Just One Day, total running time 45 minutes.
Showings: Saturday at 9:05 p.m. and Sunday at 4:00 p.m.

Memorable lines: “That’s one of those things about this city… it’s very… vertical.”

Warnings: Some nudity.

This show is the quintessential short and sweet piece – the audience can kind of see from the very beginning where it might be going, but with a length of 15 minutes, we don’t mind being led there.

The audience is thrown into the action: Casey (Ally Shuurman) sitting on the ground in a wedding dress, pointedly not looking at Harold (Dale Juvelin). We quickly learn from Harold’s look of downward terror and a well-placed chimney stack that we are on a roof – and that they’re trapped there.

Juvelin and Shurrman are both apt at displaying irritation without anger; anger is one of the easiest emotions to play, and in such trying circumstances, anger would be easy to fall back on. However, it was impressive to see both actors take the harder – and far more effective – route, which allows a sense of history and chemistry between the two characters to really shine through.

And ultimately, the inevitably happy (and little bit cliché) ending ties everything together in a neat little package. Like I said: quintessentially short and sweet.

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