{"id":22036,"date":"2018-10-24T18:14:39","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T22:14:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22036"},"modified":"2018-10-24T18:14:39","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T22:14:39","slug":"theatre-auroras-never-swim-alone-and-this-is-a-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/theatre-auroras-never-swim-alone-and-this-is-a-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatre Aurora\u2019s \u201cNever Swim Alone\u201d and \u201cThis is a Play\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Review by Scott Johnston<\/p>\n

Theatre Aurora gives us two Daniel MacIvor plays for the price of one with \u201cNever Swim Alone\u201d and \u201cThis is a Play\u201d, now playing.
\n\u201cNever Swim Alone\u201d centres on frenemies Frank and Bill, two businessmen who are locked in a long-standing battle of one-upmanship. This is explored in a series of 13 formal rounds of increasingly intense dialogues, adjudicated by a mysterious woman referee. The winner of each round is allowed time to further insult his competitor.
\nAs the unusual relationship is explored, many questions will be answered: Does this competition between two Type A personalities stem from an actual event? How is the woman involved? Does one of the men have a handgun in his briefcase as is suggested early on? What does swimming have to do with two men in suits? And will anyone come out on top?
\nAfter intermission, \u201cThis is a Play\u201d follows three less than stellar actors as they struggle through performing a poorly written play. Most of the dialog consists of inner monologs where the actors amusingly verbalize to themselves why they are performing the way they are, the issues they have with the set and direction, and what they think of their fellow actors.
\nTim O\u2019Connell as Frank and Jason Silzer as Bill have excellent pacing in the first play as much of their dialog is performed simultaneously. They, along with Moira-Kelly Steeves as the Referee, ably handle the edgier subject matter.
\nIn the second play, Joey Ferguson as the male actor, Kirsty Campbell as the older actress, and Ms Steeves performing again, this time as the younger actress, all have fun with their lighter-hearted material, and obviously relish the opportunity to portray really bad acting.
\nThe minimal set and excellent use of lighting helps in both plays to focus attention on the actors and dialog.
\nThis is just what you want for the type of evening where the more you pay attention to the stories, the more you will get out of them.
\nEvening performances of \u201cNever Swim Alone\u201d and \u201cThis is a Play\u201d continue at Theatre Aurora, 150 Henderson Drive, October 25, 26, and 27, and November 1, 2 and 3, with a matinee October 28. Details and tickets are available through the box office at 905-727-3669.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Theatre Aurora gives us two Daniel MacIvor plays for the price of one with \u201cNever Swim Alone\u201d and \u201cThis is a Play\u201d, now playing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Jq","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 10:06:49","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}