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Culture Stage

SummerWorks review: The Unbelievers

THE UNBELIEVERS by Hannah Rittner. Theatre Centre Incubator. Aug 8 at 10:30 pm, Aug 11 at 4 pm, Aug 13 at noon, Aug 14 at 4:45 pm. See listing. Rating: NN


The program notes for Hannah Rittner’s play tell us that it’s “set in Northern Iraq, a year after the massacre of the Yazidi people in Sinjar province” and follows “a Yazidi refugee and a conflict journalist after their capture by ISIS.”

Very little of that would be evident from what’s onstage. Two women find themselves trapped in a cave or small room after suffering some sort of prolonged abuse by men. One (Shadi Shahkhalli) is haunted by her past, draws pictures of flowers and is possibly readying to die the other (Sarah Baskin), a CBC journalist, is mostly disoriented.

Rittner’s script has little text, let alone subtext, leaving director Marina McClure with nothing to work with. The ending, featuring a group of women clad in white (dead Yazidi women?), is perplexing, especially without any context.

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