Diane Flack's BY A THREAD

Diane Flack’s By A Thread followed, and also followed suit, utilizing the same mish-mash form of monologue, storytelling, and role-play. Directed by Angela Beshara and featuring Heather Marie Annis, its premise is another timely glimpse into a character’s life in the moments leading up to epiphany, this time an unspecifically-crazed artist, Rose, trying very hard to start/finish a painting.

By A Thread Eat Fish LGIf you recognize Annis as half of the popular Morro and Jasp clown duo and are looking for more here, you won’t be disappointed. Annis is hilarious, endearing and quirky. The opening scenes in which she roams around stage indulging her dramatic/comedic style are really fun!

But then the piece takes a serious turn, as the reason for Rose’s odd behaviour is slowly revealed. At this point it felt, to me, like a breach occurred. Suddenly Annis has to set her skilled clowning aside to be in a serious play and tell her character’s sad backstory and I just couldn’t leap from the hyper-expressive humour to the somber sentiment the plot demanded.

Annis has brought a special character to life in Rose, and her acting is sort of unbelievable in a very good way – I wanted to stay with her in the alternate, whimsical world it felt like she was creating. But then it all became too real, too normal, too much of a story I’ve heard before.

This made for another epiphanic ending I didn’t quite believe – the second of the evening. This is, to be sure, a writing trope, entering a story at a pivotal moment that ends in some kind of profound resolution. But I wonder if the one-person genre feels an elevated expectation to wrap everything up in a neat profundity.

This double bill is a congruous pairing, and makes for an entertaining evening. Laughter comes easily and the plays leave us with much to be impressed with.