It’s not a pretty topic but it is one that affects an increasing amount of today’s families: separation of spouses; divorce. In Toby Hulse’s To Dream Again, the topic is given breath by the blameless lungs of a nine-year-old girl child, desperate to piece back the fragments of a relationship her parents have left strewn about the family home’s floor.

It sounds heavy, but StoryBook Theatre has managed to give the premise a light feel, with a ‘fairy house father’ played by a rather rotund male. The plot wafts between modern day and a Shakespearean past, a time during which the girl believes true love might have existed and could be revived in her parents again.

The play was drawn from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but its tone is every bit as 2018 as it could be. The show is driven by a tour de force, Peniel Negre, making her acting debut as Sophie, a young girl who needs the help of magic and poetry to come to grips with what’s happening before her.

The dialogue is candid, the message clear: there are some things that cannot be fixed by magic but, with such, we can get through the broken times.

Riley Galarneau livens up the stage with his jolly portrayal of Puck/Goodfellow, a plumber cum fairy-house-father. He was a pleasant sight for eyes weary of the role going to a pixie-like female, and better so that his partner in magic making is a young woman.

Part of its 2017-2018 Season of Change, To Dream Again will play at the Beddington Theatre Arts Centre until March 24^th.

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Contributor Janine Eva Trotta |

Locale Calgary |

Topic Storybook Theatre | Theatre |