WE FEW THEY MANY (The Toronto Fringe Festival Theatre - review by Heather Babcock)

                                       
Fringe Festival play follows group of activists at G20 summit. From left to right (back to front) Tennille Read, Rebecca Perry, Anthony Gerbrandt, Andrew Young, Kat Edwards, Reut Shilton, Mitchell Court and Harmonie Tower are the cast and crew of We Few They Many, which is showing at the Fringe Festival until July 17. Photo/DORI LYNDE


WE FEW THEY MANY

Presented by Paper Plaid Theatre, written and directed by Kat Edwards, staged managed by Reut Shilton
The Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival, July 6 - 17, 2011


In her "note to the audience", included in the program for Paper Plaid Theatre's G20 focused ensemble piece WE FEW THEY MANY, writer/director Kat Edwards muses "More often than not an event is only acknowledged years after the fact. It's too little too late to allow a distancing of oneself from the event. Keep it current and you may then prevent it from happening again."

WE FEW THEY MANY tells the story of the 2010 G20 protests through the eyes of five energetic young political organizers and a conservative journalist who is slowly losing grasp of her own idealism. While the story is certainly "current", WE FEW THEY MANY's fresh, 3-dimensional characters and clever pacing ensure that the play will be just as accessible twenty years from now.

Like an old black & white movie, WE FEW THEY MANY creates a sense of urgency through music and lighting - the audience doesn't see the officers in riot gear or the violence, and yet we know that something very frightening is happening.

One of the characters in WE FEW THEY MANY wonders aloud why it has become cool to be apathetic. Luckily, the Paper Plaid Theatre folks aren't too cool to care. Here's hoping we see more from them - after all, living in Ford Nation, with the KPMG reports looming over our heads, we could all use a little more of their courage.

Heather Babcock is a secretary by day, writer by night. She has had short fiction published in GUT lit, The Annex Echo, GULCH- An Assemblage of Poetry & Prose and The Toronto Quarterly, among others. She resides in Toronto.







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