That Was Friday
That Was Friday is an unusual production. At first it appears to be about the relationship between a mother, played by Sara Zwangobani, and her geographically distant adult children — daughter Eliza (Enya Daly), and son, Jack (Lachlan Martin). Mother and children keep in touch — more or less — via Zoom, sharing something of their rather average lives.
But the production is also the story of Amrit, an Armenian–Turkish trans queer woman seeking a new life in Canada. That story is told through videos in which Amrit speaks of her ancestral history and culture and its effect on her as she seeks to forge a different kind of life from that she grew up with. The show switches between these two stories — which, puzzlingly, from the beginning to the end of the show remain unconnected — and dance pieces performed by five dancers, with real-time videography providing an element of surprise.
The team assembled for this production was well-chosen. The acting was engaging and believable, and the dancing executed to a very high standard. In addition, the real-time videography was of some interest, the musical score created an emotional landscape, neutral costuming allowed for an emphasis on the imaginative choreography, and the simple set was versatile and enhanced by the lighting design.
For what the show delivers, two and a half hours was too long. It’s difficult to understand why two stories so unrelated to one another were included in a single show. The mother–children fictional story went nowhere, and the other story was essentially a monologue from a person’s real life, about her inner self. And neither story appeared to relate to the dance pieces.
That Was Friday as it stands is a mixture of incomplete smaller pieces and a collection of dances that, with some development, could become a number of complete works; not itself a complete work, but rather a promise of things to come. And it’s a promise that you may find draws you to future House of Sand productions.
Michele E. Hawkins.
Photographer: John P. Harvey.
Subscribe to our E-Newsletter, buy our latest print edition or find a Performing Arts book at Book Nook.