"There's a fairytale stuck in my throat, it climbs up to my eyes and comes out in tears, and there's no one there to listen..." -Grace

A stripper who makes men cry, a mermaid weary of serving fish and chips as she minds her daughter, the one love of her life, tired of the day-to-day in a Quebec fishing town plagued by excessive hair growth, Nadine Desrocher's English adaptation of playwright Sarah Berthiaume's Le deluge après is way out there as a modern-day fairytale, delightfully so, opting out of the usual cookie-cutter good versus evil ideology typical of the folktale genre. In its place are three-dimensional, ambiguously gray characters who aren't quite right. Or wrong.

And it's a decidedly adult tale. Skirting incest while addressing infidelity and small-town familiarity-meets-contempt, The Flood Thereafter touches on some pretty dark themes, yet somehow keeps things light and non-threatening, gently embracing the audience with the stellar Penelope (Felicia Shulman), a wig-maker/forgotten fisherman's wife one hair away from stealing the show as The Flood directed the current to exotic dancer June (Amelia Sargisson) and her tragicomic here-we-go-again indifference clashing with mermaid Grace's (Catherine Colvey) landlocked despair as she aches for a time and place we're left wondering if she even wants to revisit.

All in all, The Flood Thereafter makes the disturbing digestible. Dare I say enjoyable. The story is delivered with care but the contents are nonetheless raw, grotesque, with metaphors lingering long past curtain call.

A Talisman Theatre production.
Directed by Emma Tibaldo.
In English with some French.
Some scenes contain nudity.
Read The Flood Thereafter synopsis.
The Flood Thereafter runs October 15 to October 23, 2010 at Théâtre La Chapelle.
Admission $24.50 to $28.50 plus taxes and service charge.

The Flood Thereafter is playing at Theatre La Chapelle until October 23rd at 8pm, with matinees Wednesday and Saturday.

3700 St-Dominique