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music & lyrics by The Tragically Hip, book by Ahmed Moneka & Jesse LaVercombe, directed by Mary Francis Moore

Theatre Aquarius & Thousand Islands Playhouse, Theatre Aquarius, Hamilton

April 23–May 26, 2026;

Grand Theatre, Kingston

October 23–November 8, 2026

Chorus: “Find somewhere to grow / Grow somewhere we’re needed”

It is not necessary or even desirable that the back catalogue of every singer or music group be fashioned into a musical. The trouble is that in 1999 playwright Catherine Johnson’s book linking 22 songs by ABBA was so spectacularly successful as Mamma Mia! that ever since people have been trying to reproduce her success with the back catalogues of different groups. So, it is no surprise that Michael Rubinoff (producer of Come From Away) and David and Hannah Mirvish should commission a musical based on the songs of the Tragically Hip, the top-selling Canadian group between 1996 and 2016. The result is It’s a Good Life If You Don’t Weaken now having its world premiere at Theatre Aquarius. While Tragically Hip fans will love the musical no matter what, others will note that the book by Ahmed Moneka and Jesse LaVercombe hardly matches the sophistication of the songs.

The first character we meet is a young man named Sam who serves as the present day narrator of a story that took place in 2003-04. This story centres on an Iraqi broadcaster named Waleed, who, in a sudden rage during a BBC interview in 2003 condemns the ruling regime in Iraq, an act that immediately puts his life in danger. Although he must leave his ailing mother in Iraq, he escapes and applies for and is granted refugee status in Canada. He is told he will live in Kingston and receives the financial aid given such refugees to set themselves up in their new life.

Despite a graduate degree and the status of his former job, the only employment Waleed can find in Kingston is as a barista in a local coffee shop. The only housing he can find is sharing an apartment with a stoner student. One coffee shop regular is Jonathan, the lackadaisical co-owner of a local record store. Waleed visits the store and meets Johnathan’s sister Kate and they feel a mutual attraction.

Encouraged by Kate, Waleed submits his resume to an editor at the Whig Standard. At first, the editor has nothing for him, but eventually she needs someone to cover Kingston’s Victoria Day celebrations and gives Waleed the job.

As all these developments happen in Canada, Waleed keeps up on the news from Iraq by phoning his friend Fadi, who is also caring for Waleed’s mother. Waleed’s view is that his stay in Canada is only temporary and he will return to Iraq when it is safe or when his mother is near death. When he learns his mother has died, he is shocked that the Canadian Government will not allow him to travel back to Iraq. This causes him to fall into a depression from which his new Canadian friends help to rescue him.

Strangely enough, the difficulty with Moneka and LaVercombe’s story is that, underneath its surface of international politics, it is basically a gender-reversed variation on the typical Hallmark Christmas movie plot. In those movies a city woman with a high level job visits a small town where she falls in love with a local bachelor and decides to give up the big city for a simpler life. In It’s a Good Life, just substitute Waleed as the person with the high level job who leaves the big (war-torn) city of Baghdad for a peaceful life in the small town of Kingston, where he falls in love with a single woman who helps him see he can live a good life in Kingston.

If the triteness of the story is one problem the manipulation of information is another. Moneka and LaVercombe depict Waleed as being uncommitted to remaining in Canada because he intends to go back home at some point. The book writers show Waleed as outraged that he cannot return home to give his mother a funeral. How is it that someone as educated as Waleed does not fully understand what claiming refugee status in Canada entails? The Canadian Council for Refugees states clearly that refugees can lose their status “if you: Travel to your home country (even for a short visit)”. Waleed should know this risk when he turns over his passport to the government on entering as a refugee. Why else is he required to turn in his passport? Moneka and LaVercombe obviously artificially delay revealing this information for dramatic purposes.

The musical’s story could still work without making Waleed ignorant of what being a refugee fully involves. The story could still be about Waleed’s adjusting to his new circumstances and trying to preserve his identity while gradually realizing he is becoming more Canadian. He can still mourn his mother’s death without his entertaining the false notion that he can return to Iraq whenever he wishes.

Moneka and LaVercombe want to delay Waleed’s knowledge of the restrictions of refugees because if they don’t their story will lose the little tension it has. The central flaw of the authors’ story as a basis for a musical is that is has no conflict. After they fall in love, the stressed-out Waleed and Kate have a spat. That’s it. The subject is so inconsequential that the two can patch things up next time they meet.

The one good aspect of choosing a refugee as the focus for a Tragically Hip musical is that Waleed’s seeing Canada for the first time fits in well with the Hip’s very Canada-centric songs. While Moneka and LaVercombe make room for 18 songs, what may disturb some Hip fans is that nearly half of these are not sung through all the way. In Act 1, only four of the 11 songs are sung in full. Why is this? Catherine Johnson managed to include 22 fully sung songs in Mamma Mia!

In general, the songs are well chosen for the subjects as they arise. When Waleed covers Victoria Day in Kingston, “Fireworks” is the obvious choice. When Waleed and Kate go to Bobcaygeon and take their friendship to another level, “Bobcaygeon” sung as a duet fits perfectly. Yet, this is not always true, The chorus, oblivious to geography, sings “New Orleans Is Sinking” to illustrate the war in Iraq.

The acting and singing of the cast are universally strong. Karim Butt is a charismatic Sam. His enthusiasm for the story is infectious and is major factor in ensuring we don’t think too closely about the plot.

It’s great to see Ali Momen playing the lead role in a musical. He is probably best known for playing Kevin J. and Ali in the all-Canadian Come From Away from 2018 to 2022. He portrays Waleed as a cautious, generally unhappy person who is prone to expect that the worse might happen. When good things begin to happen in life in Kingston, he is still inclined to hold back any optimism he might feel. One of the show’s pleasures is to see how Momen has Waleed gradually acclimatize himself to a place that is predominantly peaceful and the people good. Momen brings off his one solo number “Scared” with great feeling.

Talia Schlanger plays Kate as a complex character not fully happy with her life and not completely certain what she should do about it. Kate sees that helping Waleed is a way of realizing she is needed. Schlanger’s all-stops-out account of “Cordelia” received the loudest and longest applause of the evening.

Brandon McGibbon is such an expert at playing layabouts that he could play Kate’s brother Jonathan in his sleep. Luckily, when Jonathan does muster enough energy to challenge Kate, who criticizes how little he does, McGibbon shows how Jonathan, who cared for his and Kate’s dying mother when Kate was absent, finally allows his repressed resentment to surface.

Among the many characters Rebecca Auerbach plays, her Abigail stands out. This is the editor at the Whig Standard who eventually comes to see that Waleed offers a valuable perspective that other Kingstonians might not have.

Kevin McLachlan also plays many characters, but he is funniest as Waleed’s slothful roommate Lucas. McLachlan enlivens Marc Kimelman’s easy-going choreography with some fantastic breakdancing.

Kimelman’s choreography is attractive in how it gradually shifts the performers’ coordinated movements into full-fledged dance in a low-key manner suitable to the location and subject matter. One error, however, is a sequence involving mostly White performers in burqas engaging in high-kicking dance that is really not appropriate.

The action takes place on an open stage with a seven-member band stationed on a dais in the middle of the back wall. Scott Penner has designed three sets of Egyptian-style corbelled arches to stand on either side of the dais, grey and heavily graffitied, likely meant to suggest the antiquity of a Waleed’s home of Baghdad as well as the streetscape of a university town like Kingston.

There is no denying the strong effect It’s a Good Life had on the audience, some of whom mouthed the words to every song. It felt like the audience would be happy to hear The Hip’s songs live in any form, even in Bob Foster’s often over-loud orchestrations. Nevertheless, anyone looking at the work as a musical rather than just a tribute to The Hip, will wish that the creators had come up with a story that better captures the complexity and frequent irony of Gord Downie’s lyrics.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Karim Butt as Sam; Ali Momen as Waleed and Talia Schlanger as Kate; Talia Schlanger as Kate and Brandon McGibbon as Jonathan with ensemble; Talia Schlanger as Kate and Ali Momen as Waleed. © 2026 Dahlia Katz.

For tickets visit: theatreaquarius.org or www.kingstongrand.ca.