Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Sisters find peace and understanding at a place of childhood sadness
Barb Stewart

There are few, if any, relationships more complex than those of a family.

Love/hate, conflict/compassion — all can be found within the family dynamic, and all are forces that can cause you to walk away, usually to return.

Daniel MacIvor’s Marion Bridge is the story of three Nova Scotian sisters brought back together in their childhood home at the deathbed of their mother. Of course, with family nothing ever really changes, so the sisters, Agnes (Sharon Bajer), Theresa (Ellen Peterson) and Louise (Alison Vargo), are bound to find themselves reliving the past.

The siblings are polar opposites: Agnes is an alcoholic actress who escaped to Toronto, Theresa is a nun in New Brunswick and Louise is the ‘strange’ one who loves her TV shows and blames her fate on not being named after a nun, like her sisters.

While their mother can only communicate by writing symbols on Post-It Notes, she still has the power to influence her grown daughters, making them visit the father who abandoned them all for a much younger woman.

While there is plenty of room to fill such a story with cloying melodrama, MacIvor’s touch is light, infusing this tale with as much humour as sorrow. The characters may seem archetypal at the onset, but as the story unfolds we find they are as complicated as any real family. Past regrets, hopes for the future, and uncertainty in themselves and the world all come into play as they attempt to reconnect with each other and rediscover the true meaning of family.

Set almost entirely in the kitchen — like any true family experience — the play gently reveals the inner thoughts of the sisters with simple grace. MacIvor’s obvious love for his characters gives us satisfyingly sincere portraits of them.

In the capable hands of Bajer, Peterson and Vargo, the three women are full of life, sharing recklessly silly moments together one instant, grieving the next.

When Agnes is given the opportunity to reach out to the daughter she had to give up as a pregnant teen, the sisters make a trip to Marion Bridge, a place of childhood disappointment but also a symbol of their mother’s dreams. It is here that the women find the truth of their relationship — that they are each other’s sources of strength, not weakness.

With this denouement the audience is offered a sweet and honest portrayal of the power of family and its ability to evolve.

Maybe some things do change.