If you want roll in the aisles, laugh out loud funny, you definitely don’t want to see Burnt Thicket Theatre‘s production of Andrew Kooman’s “She Has A Name.”
If you want to embark on a roller-coaster of emotions and perhaps a sea of tears, you don’t want to miss the show. The last Lethbridge productions are tonight (May 26) at 7:30 p.m. and tomorrow (May 27) at 2 p.m.. in the Sterndale-Bennett Theatre. But it moves across Canada until Oct. 6, when it closes in Red Deer.
Before that it runs for an average of a week at a time in Saskatoon, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifa
x, Winnipeg, Calgary, Victoria, Vancouver, Kelowna and Edmonton
You won’t laugh, but it will probably make you cry. If you are looking for happy endings, you won’t find one here. The violence is implied on stage, but no less gripping.
“She Has A Name” will definitely tug a few heartstrings, and it would be hard not to as it just barely touches the surface of the issue of human trafficking where girls as young as 10 and some not even that old are forced into prostitution.
The story surrounds the ultimately fruitless efforts of lawyer Jason and his boss Marta to get evidence on one of these pimps and attempt to rescue one of the girls.
It is unclear how they intend to do that in a country where the justice system and even police are ultimately corrupt in the context of the play, so the audience gets the sense their attempt will fail from the beginning, though there is a glimmer of hope.
The five actors do double duty in widely contrasting roles.
Carl Kennedy neatly balances the contrast of family man and young lawyer Jason as he attempts to get evidience undercover at various Bangkok brothels, and as the arrogant, violent menace of the pimp he is trying to put away. As Jason, he speaks impassioned to his wife Ali by computer as she begs him to come back home as the strain of this thankless and fruitless task begins to take its toll on him. She eventually tells him to stay and save Number 18. Well, he does his best.
Former Lethbridge actress Glenda Warkentin wears the worries of the world wearied, grim and gruff Marta on her face and in her voice. You can tell there is more to her story, but it is left up to your imagination.
She does double duty as one of the “voices” which add a surreal essence of spirituality or conscience, speaking to each of the characters except the pimp, who is a shadowy, sinister and violent figure, only emerging periodically at the beginning and at the end to brandish his gun at Marta and poor Number 18, before turning her over to corrupt police officers for “wasting his time.”
The voices are an unusual device reminiscent of a Greek chorus, telling the audience what the characters are thinking, adding a little more information we might not know about the issue.
Evelyn Chew has the tough task of playing Number 18 and one of the voices.
She plays the young prostitute number 18,worn well beyond her years, though the little girl within sometimes subtly emerges.
We don’t learn how she started on the long, rough road to becoming one of the Pimp’s best prostitutes within six months. We never know her name and only know her father died when she was 18, used to sing to her and after he died got sent by her mother to work at her uncle’s factory which somehow lead to prostitution in several different brothels in several different countries. So the audience is as lost as Marta and Jason trying to find this evidence about the crime.
Even the delightfully villainous Mamma, played by Sienna Howell-Holden with relish, shows glimpses of the little girl within as Jason loses his temper and tries to strangle her while trying to save Number 18.
This play has got to be a tough job for the actors. The tears they shed by the end of the show look genuine.
“ She Has A Name” is a harrowing, dark, disturbing, yet thought provoking trip down the seedy side of Bangkok’s human trafficking industry.
Tickets are $22.00 to $27
