New play about historical Manitoba courtroom drama falls flat

Manitoba's history is filled with fascinating characters and stories, andSarah Ballenden is one of them but the play named after her, in its world premiere at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, doesn't live up toits promise.

Winnipeg playwright Maureen Hunter's well-intentioned and ambitious new play, Sarah Ballenden, has great dramatic potential. It takes us back to the Red River Settlement in 1850, where Sarah's (Sera-Lys McArthur) husband, John (Paul Essiembre), is a high-ranking official with the Hudson's Bay Company.

Scandal strikes their household and the settlement when gossip spreads that she's having an affair with a military officer, Foss (Toby Hughes). He and Sarah take their accusers to court in a defamation case that seems to put Sarah on trial as much as the defendants.

But there are also potentially intriguing racial and classist undertones to all of this Sarah is Mtis, and many of her accusers are recently arrived women of British descent. Is their gossip the result of jealousy of her position, some personal dislike, or the beginning of a racism many Mtis living in Manitoba would say is still very much part of our society?

These are interesting questions and to its credit, Sarah Ballenden touches on all of them but often too obliquely. Is the real target of the play gossip, or racism, or colonialism? It seems to spread itself too thin, and so never really feels like it finds a solid focus.

Its structure, too, seems to sap some of its dramatic potential. Hunter crafts her 150-minute play as a series of short scenes that bounce back and forth in time covering periods before, during and after the trial. As a result, much of the play becomes a courtroom procedural, and one that's heavy on process but too light on real dramatic tension.

It feels as if the more interesting story might actually be outside the courtroom, particularly in Sarah's relationship with other women in the colony, but we get only too-brief glances at that world.

It also feels as if Sarah's Mtis heritage is given short shrift.

The pull between colonial Britain and the Red River Mtis is strongly suggested by Brian Perchaluk's handsome set, the curved walls of which show a floral pattern suggesting Mtis beadwork on one side, a Union Jack on the other.

There's the idea that in this pull, Sarah has had to give up much of her own Mtis heritage particularly since her husband has forced her to send her children to schools in Britain for an English education.

But what about the heritage Sarah herself has given up? This is hinted at more than seen.

"They waltz like English ladies, but they cannot do the Red River jig like their mother and that is a shame," John tells Sarah after visiting their daughters in England.

It's a beautiful line, and hints at what I wish Sarah Ballenden showed us more of.

I also wish the title character herself here was one we could root for more easily. Played a bit too stiffly by McArthur, she seems more irritable than steely and determined.

Other members of the 10-person cast a virtual who's who of some of Winnipeg's finest turn in solid performances in Steven Schipper's production, but generally don't have enough to work with. With 14 characters crammed into the action, most are too thinly drawn.

In many ways, Sarah Ballenden is a commendable effort to tell a truly Manitobanstory, and one too few of us know, on our province's largest stage. But in perhaps trying to tackle too much, it unfortunately falls flat.

Sarah Ballenden runs at the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre's John Hirsch Mainstage until May 13.

Preview: Sarah Ballenden at the RMTC

8 years ago

Duration 2:13

Scandal, gossip and Manitoba history: Sarah Ballenden has the makings for a great play, but falls short.