May Be a Play?!
Created by Sidney Moon, Maggie Decady, Hannah Gibson-Fraser, Kevin Burton
Produced by Backwards Productions (Ottawa, Canada)
60M
Content Notes: Mental Health Topics, Audience Participation
Earnest nearly to a fault, Sidney Moon and Maggie Decady’s May Be a Play?! is one of the sweetest hero’s journeys I’ve ever seen, and a painfully 21st-century one as well. The two-hander follows Sid, with some excellent help from Maggie, as Sid tries to create a play for Ottawa Fringe.
The internal timeline of the show can get confusing at times—the Sid we see on stage is the future one from the Sid we see in the vlogs, though occasionally there seems to be a slip in what present-Sid should know—but is generally easy enough to follow. Most of the story is told in vlogs that detail the journey towards creating the Fringe show. We see Sid, and sometimes Maggie, as they teach themself ukulele, debate the feasibility of writing a musical (if it was easy, I’d be reviewing a musical right now), cut their bangs, and overall just do whatever it is vloggers do these days (I feel old).
Some of the vlogs we could’ve done without, although Sid is great at drawing a moral out of everything. Perhaps we didn’t need a “cut-my-bangs-with-me” video, but it was fun, and ended up being a bigger plot point than I’d initially expected.
At the end of the day, this is a Fringey play about a Fringey play—mental illness and personal difficulties loom large, as does the impending deadline of the Fringe festival. Some viewers will see this show as unfocused—which I think is a feature more than a bug, but might not appeal to people who prefer a more well-built play—but it isn’t completely random. A few extraneous vlogs aside, the plot moves linearly towards an endearing conclusion about self-discovery.
Sid and Maggie have a lot of fun on stage. So did the audience, with one audience member jumping out of her seat for the chance to volunteer onstage. That’s as good a review as any.
May Be a Play?! is playing at the Arts Court Theatre until June 25, 2023. Visit ottawafringe.com/fringe/ for the schedule and box office info. Read more reviews at https://apt613.ca/category/festival/fringe/.
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