Istvan Reviews ➤ THE WELKIN ⏤ Soulpepper Theatre | The Howland Company | Crow’s Theatre

The ads for Lucy Kirkwood’s The Welkin tell us that it’s 12 Angry Men meets The Crucible, and that’s apt—examining, as it does, the weight of personal integrity and the conflicting individual attitudes that complicate our pursuit of justice; though Kirkwood’s play bears a striking resemblance to another, more recent work too. Mid-way through the second act of this scenario, which see’s twelve 18th century women wrangle over the fate of a young woman accused of child-murder, I felt intense echos of Women Talking, Sarah Polley’s powerful adaptation of the Miriam Toews novel. 

Women cloistered in a hay loft, reckoning with alienation from their Mennonite community, or holed up in the attic of a rural English courthouse without food, drink or fire—they all have a great, painful decision to make—and an opportunity to assert themselves independently from the men of their society. Here, always, is a space of heated conflict and camaraderie.

In a cooperative strategy to support each other and fully realize ambitious projects, The Welkin is one of many recent and continuing collaborations between established Toronto theatre companies. Soulpepper Theatre, The Howland Company and Crow’s Theatre have joined forces to mount director Weyni Mengesha’s sumptuous production. The visual gestalt is deeply compelling, even before you appreciate the richly rendered performances.     

Julia Fox’s immense set is both intimate and cavernous with its expanse of rough grey walls eerily suggesting an overcast sky, converging on the vaulted ceiling of an ominous alcove. As the massive ensemble—bundled up in Michelle Tracy’s gorgeously textured period costumes—cram together and break apart under Bonnie Beecher’s sensual lighting, the production consistently feels like a Romantic painting. Mengesha has crafted elegant tableaux that are aesthetically deliberate yet, on the whole, feel sincere and lived-in. 

The sinister vibes are strong from the opening scene—a murky, candlelit reunion between husband and wife, with Frederick (Cameron Laurie) awakened in the middle of the night by his wife, Sally (bahia watson), who had run off with another man. She’s covered in blood, though she tells us its not her own. Suspected of murder, she seeks to avoid hanging by claiming she is pregnant—the validity of her claim to be determined by a jury of twelve other women.

Persuasive contradictions abound in The Welkin. It is a contained courtroom drama yet feels expansive in its themes and world-building, immersing us in the past while the modern day intrudes in jarring juxtapositions. I don’t want to spoil the specifics, but Kate Bush figures more prominently than you might imagine for a story set in 1759. 

Our first glimpse of them is as a grand cliché: women at work, in their place—at a spinning wheel, tending to child, sweeping—then rather quickly followed up by amusing little introductions to each as they are sworn in—snapshots of the real women behind their social roles, idiosyncratic realities that will later be fleshed out. As these women debate the truth of Sally’s claim, secret relationships, resentments and redemptive possibilities rise to the surface and we gradually understand each has skin in the game. Made fiercely real by Kirkwood’s text this stellar ensemble, the mounting hysteria feels authentic.

It would make for an inordinately cumbersome read to acknowledge each performance, but I absolutely need to shout all of these mesmerizing women out: Olunike Adeliyi, Ghazal Azarbad, Nadine Bhabha, Brefny Caribou, Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster, Raquel Duffy, Kyra Harper, Fiona Highet, Annie Luján, Natasha Mumba, Addison Wagman and Hallie Seline. Multiple backstories and interpersonal connections aside, the story ultimately fixates on the central relationship between watson’s Sally and Mayko Nguyen’s Lizzy, a mid-wife originally reluctant to join this enterprise, but compelled to be a voice of reason within an angry community. And I do think it’s important for me to highlight Nguyan and watson’s portrayals and chemistry. 

Nguyen is an admirable embodiment of confident womanhood, persistently striving to empower her peers and maintain their authority whenever traditional deference to men rears its systemic head. It’s also thrilling to see her lose that noble composure. watson’s portrait here is charged and troubling. She is demonstrably unlikable—vulgar, confrontational and with seemingly no sense of gratitude for Lizzy’s attempts at support or solidarity, let alone her relatable, though still unpleasant, animosity towards the women who actively seek her demise. 

And I didn’t like her. But I’m not supposed to. I’m being asked to confront her complex, ugly and heart-wrenching humanity. Especially in the final moment between the two central women, as Halley’s comet (a key symbol here) looms before them, I couldn’t help but want to sooth her as she succumbs to the unfairness of the world. After squirming uncomfortably at her palpable, abject defiance, watson finally gives us an unguarded view of a wretched girl, now woman, who was never nurtured.  

Oddly, I found Laurie (as Frederick Poppy and Dr. Willis) and Craig Lauzon as Mr Coombes (appointed by the court to supervise the women’s deliberations) to be quite weak in comparison to the women here. There is some thematic resonance in this, as these men—especially the scoffed at and humiliated Mr. Coombes—are meant to seem ineffectual and a little ridiculous in this scenario, but there is something stilted about their performances here that doesn’t seem quite in-line with the intentionally satirical, manly posturing.  

At times poignant and nuanced, then grotesque and absurd, the play gets increasingly more intriguing as I continue to think about it. Even the boldly anachronistic elements that perplexed me at first have blossomed in my imagination—nudging me to contemplate the past, present and future society this story is wrestling with. I need to read Kirkland’s script and, if I can, revisit this production. It is dense and deserving of more committed appreciation. I’m also very curious about Liisa Repo-Martell’s alternate take on Lizzie.

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The Welkin
September 4 to October 5, 2025
Young Centre for the Performing Arts
(50 Tank House Lane)
2 hours, 30 minutes (with intermission)