Lois Fine’s Freda And Jem’s Best Of The Week looks at a 20-year relationship that’s breaking up, with the squabbling parents as distraught as their two teenage kids.
Familiar story? Not quite. The parents are lesbians Jem and Freda, and their children are angry with both women and fighting to hold the family together.
The play, workshopped at SummerWorks 2011 and now opening the Buddies season, looks at the butch and femme aspects of the couple’s relationship, giving the characters a twist that’s sometimes comic, sometimes tragic. Directed by Judith Thompson, it also features live music by Lorraine Segato.
“What I find fascinating is that it’s a real exploration of how to navigate a long-term relationship and handle its falling apart,” says Diane Flacks, who plays Freda to Kathryn Haggis’s butch Jem. “Just as importantly, it looks at what the dissolution does to the children and how everyone tries, at some level, to protect the other three.
“It’s kind of like working on monkey bars. To move forward, you have to hold tightly onto a secure bar as you reach for the next.”
“The two women were drawn together in the first place because they made each other feel special, the centre of the universe,” adds Haggis, who’s remembered for her work in Dyke City.
“Jem is a plumber, confident and proud of herself when they meet, but she’s surprised to find the sophisticated Freda interested in her. Later, she doesn’t have the emotional flexibility to sustain the partnership.”
Freda’s just as flawed, explains Flacks, though she presents a great front of having it all together.
“But in crisis, she makes mistakes, lets things go, becomes passive-aggressive.”
The kids, a boy and a girl, are just as conflicted, arguing with their parents one minute and trying to bring them back into the relationship the next.
“This is a story about love, about the kids as much as about the sexuality of the parents,” says Haggis. “Having those various viewpoints makes the show more layered, the characters more detailed.”
Opens tonight (Thursday, September 18) and runs to October 5. Buddies in Bad Times. 416-975-8555. See listing.
