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by Tracey Power, directed by Alan Dilworth

Red Sky Performance, Young People’s Theatre, Toronto

February 7-20, 2012

“Don’t Mess with Mother Nature”

The Great Mountain is a 50-minute play aimed at children in Grades 1-7 that I very much enjoyed while in the theatre.  The design is imaginative, the performances full of life and the ecologically-minded story is made exciting in the guise of an adventure story.  Reflection, however, revealed rather too many issues that are not as clear as they should be.

Inspired by the Northern plains story of “Jumping Mouse”, playwright Tracey Power begins the play with a prologue in which we see a Grandfather (Meegwun Fairbrother) teach his granddaughter Mika (Nicole Joy-Fraser) about nature–specifically the Great Mountain and the Laughing River.  The fact that Mika can see herself in the river is meant to show her that human beings are part of nature and nature reflects what we do.  He teaches her that the Great Mountain wraps herself in snow every year and that that snow is turns into the Laughing River. 

Suddenly we switch to a big city where people are caught up in the rat race.  Designer Jeff Chief emphasizes this by costuming the city’s inhabitants in grey suits with rat’s ears and tails.  There young Nuna (Allyson Pratt), the equivalent to the “Jumping Mouse”, begins hearing a strange crying sound in her ears that no one else can hear.  She goes to her grandmother, Mike of the prologue, who realizes that Nuna is perceiving something important. 

They travel to the Laughing River and notice that the river is no longer laughing.  To get to the source of the problem, Nuna enlists the help of a Fisherman and then of a Native boy called “Boy” (both played by Fairbrother), as she makes the perilous journey to the summit.  There Nuna and Boy meet the spirit of the Great Mountain (Joy-Fraser), who tells them that pollution and global warming have harmed her and have caused to cry and the river no longer to laugh.  Nuna, who has thought that a monster was hurting the Great Mountain, now realizes that mankind itself is the monster.  “By hurting Mother Nature we are hurting ourselves”, she exclaims. 

The children’s solution is that the Great Mountain should make her difficulties noticed by creating a great tremor.  To help create the tremor the children launch into a fantastically energetic dance choreographed by Carlos Rivera and Sandra Laronde.  The show ends with Pratt, now as a grandmother teaching her grandson (Fairbrother) about nature in a repetition of the show’s initial scene. 

Since we are led to assume that global warming has affected the river, it is surprising when the Fisherman and Nuna have such difficulty sailing on the river’s wild rapids and it’s strange that the Fisherman fears that the river with overflow its banks.  The key word that is missing in the text of the play but that is present in the plot summery in the Teacher’s Guide is “glacier”.  It is not that the mountain wraps itself in snow every year as we are told, but that the glacier that supplies the river is melting.  Since there’s quite a difference in decreased snowfall versus losing a glacier, this point should be made clear to the audience and not just to teachers.

The water imagery is also confused when the great Mountain says that her tears are now mixing with the water of the river.  If snow or a glacier are the source of the river, what then are these tears?  Even if it is only a metaphor, it is a metaphor that blurs the issue.

The most serious problem, however, is the ending.  Power makes such a to-do about the children helping the Great Mountain create a tremor, but she does nothing to show what effect it has.  In fact, in the following scene in the big city, life appears to go on as if nothing had happened.  It is certainly true that most city folk don’t even think about the power of nature until some disaster like a hurricane, earthquake or volcano happens, but Power should provide us with some reaction to the tremor and, even better, with some realization of the city folk of their responsibility.  It should be much clearer that we all must live in harmony with Mother Nature, not just because a Great Mountain is sad, but because Mother Nature is ultimately still in charge. 

If there are problems with Power’s text, there are none with the production.  Jung-Hye Kim set with mountains in the background and a circle of stones, representing both a mystical space and the land surrounded by the river, is simple but majestic, especially under Steve Lucas’s colourful lighting and use of unusual patterned gobos.  Costume designer Kim has been very clever in creating a range of costumes for both Joy-Fraser and Fairbrother that allow for the many quick changes they have to make. 

All three actors show impressive skill in acting, singing and dancing.  Fairbrother is especially busy in switching from character to character with rapidity and precision.  Joy-Fraser arouses much sympathy as the Grandmother and the Great Mountain and most, if not all, children will be able to identify with the frustration and impatience with adults that Pratt conveys as Nuna.

The Great Mountain is an attractive piece with an important message.  It seems that Power caught between encouraging children to think independently and promoting an environmental message has not quite connected the two, at least in terms of cause and effect.  Dancing to create a tremor is symbolic, but what should children really do?  With some reworking the show could achieve a more powerful effect.             

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Allyson Pratt and Meegwun Fairbrother. ©2012 Cylla von Tiedemann.

For tickets, visit http://youngpeoplestheatre.ca.