Photo provided by the company
Presented by The Long Sea Productions
It took me a while to realize that the titular Three Descending Notes are the chimes of the TTC subway. That is where this deceptively simple, wildly trippy and bittersweet story begins. Odelia (Georgia Grant), an elderly woman clutching a potted flower, is mesmerized by some beautiful young women on the subway train. She imagines them as fantastical sirens (Liesl Adriaans, Ana Delgadillo, Blanca Espinoza, Francesca Argento) and it isn’t long before her whimsical imagination erupts into the space around her, luring us into her playfully fraught psyche.
This production, taking place in one of this year’s unconventional venues (a bar), is staged on small platform enclosed by truss and a special scrim. This “Pepperscrim” process is a modern form of the 18th century theatrical trick known as Pepper’s Ghost, where a hidden chamber, glass and mirrors created the illusion of spectres on stage. Now lasers and a metallic fabric allow for these very cool projections.
Those floating mermaids, a pirate (Justan Myers Chapman) on a violent ocean, and a variety of wildlife, star-scapes and encroaching flora manifest around Grant (the only person physically on stage). These visual effects are credited to Nae Phillips, though there are a handful of collaborators contributing to the small-scale spectacle—Will Innes (videographer), Hagop Ohannessian (projectionist) and Matt Hallworth (whose lighting design allows for Grant to remain a discernible focal point amongst these apparitions).
Three paragraphs in and I haven’t even told you what this is about! Odelia, an elderly woman who gets overwhelmed by mermaid visions on the subway, gets off the train and becomes quite lost. She’s just trying to get home, but she is in the early stages of dementia and her journey becomes a sort of fanciful odyssey as the story invites us into her headspace.
Written and directed by Robin North, this very intimate and personal story won me over… for the most part. I loved how desperately Odelia wants to remain on track, involved in the mundanity of every day life, but is tripped up by her unreliable mind and relatable insecurities. Her obsession with the young women on the subway, the allure of youth, and the self-consciousness that keeps intruding seemed particularly amusing and painful in equal measure.
Grant is an endearing presence with a powerful voice. (This is also a musical!) The songs, by Rachael Cardiello, are as ethereal as the projected hallucinations. There is a deeply compelling operatic quality to the score and vocals that afford this a certain majesty, despite how offbeat and silly it can seem. When a projected bear breaks out in song, I had a rather gloriously ambivalent moment as I considered all of us sitting there witnessing the absurdity—baffled and beguiled in equal measure.
There were times when Odelia’s monologue is a little stilted. I wonder if this could be even more intuitive and immersive by cutting out a lot of the text as she navigates a precarious reality, projecting our understanding onto the visuals, her body language and more sparse, non sequitur text. I don’t want to get into the weeds here with notes, but I do think the spoken bits are a bit overwritten for the what they are.
There is also an uncanny, glitchy quality that arises during some of the projected visual effects, but these actually seem thematically appropriate and enhance the overall experience. Rough around the edges, and certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but I found this a lovely, very human little interpretive snapshot of dementia and hopeful imagination.
Three Descending Notes
@ Toronto Fringe Festival
running June 30 to July 12, 2026
Geary Avenue Warehouse
(209 Geary Avenue)
60 minutes
