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“Wedding Band has a big story to tell, especially as it tackles societal issues that have not been resolved. There are massive and complex themes within the play, not only dealing with racism, but also misogynoir, Christianity, and Black womanhood…
Both actors give brilliant performances, most notably Rudder, as her character comes to terms with the thought of possibly having wasted the past ten years of her life.”
Read Full Review07/23/2023“In the hands of a gifted and compassionately understanding director, acted with vibrancy and power by a skilled company and buoyed by the talents of a gifted artistic company, Frances Koncan’s Women of the Fur Trade must be at the top of everyone’s list of theatre not-to-miss this summer.
The play successfully touches upon the realities of social injustices centuries ago and in today’s troubled times. In less than two hours the company uses appropriate anachronistic devices with wild abandon while taking pokes at everything and everyone from Stephen Harper, Jean Chretien and, dare we add another one of those dreaded spoiler alerts, a toy Canada Post truck with a mind of its own.”
Read Full Review07/20/2023“Yvette Nolan’s Women of the Fur Trade raise many questions.
Where is the line between historical fact and fiction? What do we actually know about the people who become history’s heroes and villains? Can friendships withstand politically polarizing events and the public discourse that follows?
These are the questions that Marie-Angelique (Kathleen MacLean), Eugenia (Joelle Peters) and Cecilia (Jenna-Lee Hyde) – each of whom are from different cultural backgrounds and have distinct outlooks on life – grapple with as they discuss life, love, marriage, men, family, freedom and the ongoing Red River Resistance from their tiny one-room cabin in a fort on the banks of a reddish river in Manitoba’s Treaty One Territory in “eighteen hundred and something-something.”
Read Full Review07/17/2023“Under the direction of Yvette Nolan, all the performances are strong but MacLean’s self-absorbed Marie-Angelique and Barker’s Riel, who reaches almost Trump-like levels of delusion in his final scenes, are particularly delightful…
Women of the Fur Trade doesn’t leave you with much to chew on. It’s entertaining but does feel like an overblown Fringe show, a farcical bonbon rather than a satirical meal.”
Read Full Review07/20/2023“In the hands of [Yvette] Nolan, this 110-minute production, featuring a cast of Indigenous and non-Indigenous actors, feels brisk, thrust along by punchline after punchline…
“Women of the Fur Trade” functions superbly as a biting satire, proposing a bold feminist critique of Riel’s Red River Rebellion…
It’s a testament to Koncan’s writing that “Woman of the Fur Trade” works so masterfully as a satire: it disarms with its wit, charms with its narratives and provokes with its timeless themes.”
Read Full Review07/18/2023
