The Wedding Night
by Nadine Thornhill
First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes The Wedding Night. At the end of their perfect day, Ben and Gabrielle are having a less than perfect night. Conjugal bliss is put on hold as they grapple with the idea of marriage and what it means for them. Mature content/language.
Silent "Quemb" Productions
Ottawa ON
Venue 2- Academic Hall
Comedy
Mature
| Date | Time | Buy Tickets |
| Friday June 20 | 20:00 | |
|---|---|---|
| Saturday June 21 | 23:00 | |
| Tuesday June 24 | 18:00 | |
| Thursday June 26 | 23:00 | |
| Saturday June 28 | 12:00 | |
| Sunday June 29 | 20:00 |
Nadine Thornhill
June 13th, 2008Check it out! Our “Behind the scenes” featurette . Get a sneak peek at the cast and crew of The Wedding Night. Come for the raucous fun. Stay for the political endorsements.
Brian M. Carroll
June 21st, 2008“The Wedding Night” has something uncommon: a really good NEW script.
Many Fringe performers are presenting existing material. (And more power to them. The best Lady Macbeth I ever saw was on the Fringe.) With new plays, I often come away thinking that the acting, direction, staging, lighting, etc. were better than the script. (And on rare occasions, the props were better than the script. Don’t ask!)
What a wonderful script! It’s a delight to see a new play that lives up to the acting talent on stage.
The script is genuinely funny. The audience laughed. A lot. Furthermore, it’s easy to dismiss a play about relationships as a “chick play”. So it’s not surprising that the women laughed. A lotl. But the men laughed. A lot. Plus, writer Nadine Thornhill has such a keen understanding of humour that she threw in a number of jokes just for the men. The men got the jokes and laughed. And the women didn’t feel uncomfortable.
The script is also intelligent. There are some smart cookies presented on the stage. Marriage is a big step, and weddings are a stressful time that can bring out the best and worst in us. The script smartly brings out the strains that Gabe and Ben’s wedding places on their relationship, that of their best friends Paige and Andrew, and on friendships between the men and between the women.
These are smart people, but Thornhill knows that smart people can do dumb things. Particularly under stress. How they deal their mistakes keeps the plot moving, has the audience identify with them, and lets the audience laugh with them.
Getting back to acting talent:
Kate Smith is SO solid. Having seen her in “Top Girls” with Third Wall, and “Iron” with Seven-Thirty, she continues to impress me with the range that she can handle. As Gabe, she’s clearly in love (and lust) with Ben, yet struggling with the role(s) that her friends and family are trying to foist on her in marriage. Kate’s delivery and pacing are a joy to behold.
Ali Gratian’s drunk scene as Paige, Gabe’s Maid of Honour, is dead-on. I could feel her hangover afterwards. (It was a doozy.) I could also feel Gabe’s discomfort and embarrassment for her best friend. Ali and Kate really do seem like friends who go back to Grade 2 together, for better and worse.
Joe Marques makes it clear why Gabe loves Ben. Ben’s a great guy, without being perfect. Without his foibles, he’d just be a caricature. He’s loving and supportive, but he has trouble handling surprises. I could feel him squirm, suddenly having to deal with issues that he’s never had to think about before.
Mark McPherson has a tough role. As Andrew, Mark has to provide a balance between idealism, naivete, competence and bumbling. A smart idealist doctor, Andrew can be blind to the impact he has on his girlfriend Paige and his best buddy Ben. Plus, Andrew is the butt of some of the jokes for the men in the audience. Comedy is hard to do well. Laughter is Mark’s reward in a tough role.
All that said, opening night showed some room for improvement.
My wife had trouble hearing some of the lines from Mark, Joe and Ali, and we were in the third row. The show ran shorter than advertised, so we suspect that they’re rushing. We could hear Kate just fine, and her pace seemed perfect. Directors Thornhill and Danielle K.L. Grégoire have the stage time to slow those three down a tad.
Would it kill the budget to have some programs? Do the audience really have to sign onto a web site and search through a 9:23 minute video to find character names? This show is likely heading for a sellout. Can the company spend a little cash to print the audience some bios? I’ve seen Joe before, but I had to search hard to find out that he was in “Reality Check” last year.
Academic Hall was 3/4 full on opening night. “The Wedding Night” has had good advance press, with Kate’s picture splashed across the front page of the Citizen, above the fold. Check this one out early in the Fringe before it sells out, and come early to get a good seat.
Oh yes: There’s a mature content and language warning. It’s for real, folks. Ignore it at your peril.
David
June 23rd, 2008Out of the three finge shows I’ve seen so far, this was by far the best. Sincere, well paced and giving a sense of realism to a modern relationship. Did I mention it was funny, really funny. This is a great fringe play but if it was a bit longer it could easily be staged in a traditional venue and get rave reviews.
Melanie Frank
June 23rd, 2008This show had lots of advance press, but I was disappointed. I was expecting so, so much better than what I saw. Maybe because I’ve been to Fringes all over Canada for years, and the subject matter is not original in the least. I could have sworn I’d seen this script somewhere else before.
The acting was good, I just didn’t feel too thrilled with the writing.
Stephanie
June 23rd, 2008I really enjoyed this show, I thought the writing was fresh and real, and the acting was enjoyable and fun.
Ian!
June 24th, 2008I was amused. I like words and language, and the script delivers.
I wanted more; it ended with a sub-plot left unresolved (perhaps I missed
something) and I wanted everyone to look forward to a happy ending.
Rusty Priske
June 24th, 2008A funny, entertaining story that actually touches on real life issues faced by many couples?
Who woulda thunk?
The Wedding Night is an exciting Fringe debut and I look forward to many more shows by Quemb in the future.
Richard
June 25th, 2008The script was clever, intelligent, and fresh. The acting was compelling, with the actors delivering not just clever dialogue, but real character. I actually felt like a voyeur as I peeked into the bedroom and life of this young couple and their friends.
The Bride delivered an exceptional performance, giving me fresh insight into brilliant, young, fiercely independent, yet endearingly-sentimental-in-spite-of-herself new brides. Her best-friend came through as the perfect foil for the bride’s stridentness, showing a sense of comedic timing and delivery I can only describe as sublime. The men were good too, giving us believable characters with sincerely and thoughtfully expressed opinions, yet maintaining a certain manliness I found reassuring. There was even an excellent portrayal of every school front office receptionist I’ve ever dealt with.
The staging was creative, the lighting effective, all in all, a great deal of fun, which I highly recommend.
Amy
July 1st, 2008This was by far the worst show I saw at the fringe, and I have no idea why people are raving about it. It was embarrassing for me to watch. There were so many things they did wrong, but for the most part it just felt under rehearsed. The bride talked way too fast instead of speaking with any real emotion. They lit a scene from the side, which made no sense. They exited before the lights even went down! The only good acting took place for the noises offstage. I know it’s after the fringe, and this comment doesn’t really help anyone, but it helps me because i’m still angry about it!
Vernon W
July 2nd, 2008I saw the “Best In Venue” edition of this show on Sunday night, and found it entertaining though it wasn’t my favourite show at the fringe. I actually found it to be very well rehearsed. However, I have to agree with Amy that the actress playing the bride (Kate Smith) spoke too quickly, even though I didn’t miss a word she said. The subject matter wasn’t particularly original, but the writing and acting was solid enough in my opinion. All in all, definitely worth a see!
Campy
July 3rd, 2008I love Nadine Thornhill, and after all the advance press and talk I was expecting a lot more from this play. I didn’t find the conflict of the play to be that High stakes or compelling, it was so so for me. Could there have been a bigger conflict perhaps? The sub-plot of the doctor friend was lukewarm. It really felt like an episode of so so TV rather then a Fringe play. The acting was ok, although agree from comments that Kate Smith spoke way too fast. She’s a pretty solid actor though. She really held that show together for me.
Now they were at a disadvantage as I had just seen DIe Roten Punkte which was an INCREDIBLE show - edgy and took chances. This one didn’t take any real chances.
But keep writing Nadine, you do have a gift for dialogue. Sink your teeth into something more meaty next time.
Channelle1982
August 25th, 2008I ended up here while searching the net Why? Beats me ask the search engine but anyhow it was a nice surprise I enjoyed discovering your blog, thx for the nice read!
Leave a Reply