The Bathtub Girls
Joff Schmidt | CBC News | Posted: July 21, 2017 7:46 PM | Last Updated: July 21, 2017
Loosely based on a true crime story, The Bathtub Girls is dark and compelling
Rating: ★★★★ Review
Company: kairos
Genre: Physical Theatre
Venue: 11- Red River College (Roblin Centre)
This is not to be confused with The Drowning Girls — a hit at last year's Fringe about three women drowned in the bathtub. This time, it's the girls carrying out the drowning.
Based loosely on a 2003 case in Mississauga, Ont., this play focuses on two sisters — immigrants and outsiders at their school trying to deal with a single mother with crippling alcoholism — who make a terrible choice about how to deal with all that's wrong in their lives.
But is that choice, as they claim, a merciful kindness — or is it cold-blooded murder? There are provocative questions in this piece by creator/performers Natalia Bushnik and Robin Luckwaldt Ross, which blends dance-like physical theatre and dialogue to tell its story.
They're strong performers, and flesh out complex and sympathetic characters here. The piece itself can feel overwhelmingly grim at points, but it's also often eerily graceful and strangely hypnotic.
A dark but compelling piece of theatre. - Joff Schmidt
It's a dark but compelling piece of theatre.