Eli-Bella Wood, Chloe Chan, Cayne Kitagawa, and Joseph Brown from ‘On a Sunday in August’, Photo provided by the company
Presented by Bait and Switch
This sincere and depressing portrait of a rural Ontario family’s dysfunction is intimate and familiar. The mention of the nearby Honda plant struck an especially nostalgic chord for me as I grew up in Alliston. I even attended the plant’s grand opening when I was 8 years old. On a Sunday in August, though honest and compelling, gets snagged on production limitations and doesn’t feel fully realized.
Though serious subject matter can be successful at the festival, it’s often highly stylized or poetic. Bleak and hard-hitting naturalistic dramas are tricky to pull of at Fringe. The hectic momentum—of both presenting companies and attending audiences—isn’t particularly conducive to the headspace required for the nuanced acting and finely tuned energy. Stephanie Williams’ staging is ultimately undermined by the Fringe of it all as well as some weaknesses in its execution.
Olivia Quinn-Smith’s script is quite lovely, delving into the complex and layered details of fraught familial dynamics, the rapidly shifting real estate market and the loss of rural, family-owned industry. Her story is a heartfelt portrait of three siblings navigating their own needs and the thorny, emotionally taxing entanglements with their parents’ estate.
The main point of contention is the family farm, around which swirls the frustrated empathy of Abby (Chloe Chan), Daniel’s (Cayne Kitagawa) estrangement and struggles with substance abuse, and their mutually frustrating attempts to engage their antagonistic brother Paul (Joseph Brown) in discussions about selling the land. Figuring into the drama is childhood friend turned real estate agent, Shelby (Eli-Bella Wood), who has been invited to appraise the property.
Looming throughout is the issue of Paul’s declining health. Diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, he’s entirely unwilling to accept his deteriorating condition nor the reality that he’ll soon no longer be able to maintain the farm he so passionately defends. His rants about a lost way of life, mass-production and corporate hegemony can be a little self-righteous, but his vehement and confrontational obstinacy is the story’s driving thematic mechanism. Brown’s performance is also the most consistently persuasive.
The sound effects of footsteps, doors and blasts of rainfall during entrances and exits are clunky and entirely unnecessary. If there isn’t the time or resources to hone them, remove them entirely. The rain is a significant story element and has atmospheric utility, but would work better as a continuous, faint backdrop. And we certainly don’t need an auditory indication that people are coming and going; we can see it.
Though there are moments that feel deeply authentic, the performances are, for the most part, somewhat affected. They hit the crucial beats obviously enough to carry us through, but this script demands a level of verisimilitude not quite achieved here.
On a Sunday in August
@ Toronto Fringe Festival
running July 3 to 14, 2024
Tarragon Theatre Solo Room (30 Bridgman Ave)
running time: 50 minutes
