Toronto Online Review: 'Flower Girl' in YPT's Right Here, Write Now Festival
Anita Majumder’s ‘Flower Girl’ Poses Some Challenging Questions for Post Lockdown Life
Aaron Kropf, Associate Toronto Critic
The second show (Flower Girl) in Young People’s Theatre Right Here, Write Now Festival poses some tough questions. This short play challenges the viewer to consider what the world should look like after the Covid-19 lock-down. It had me thinking what my responsibility is in making those changes come about. These questions might not be top of mind during a conversation between a bride and her wedding planner, but that is just what Flower Girl gives us.
Anita Majumder created a story about a bride-to-be struggling with what her wedding should look like once the government opens the economy. The crux of the story involves the girl’s mother who has been organizing the wedding with the Wedding Planner, and without the bride’s knowledge. The mother has decided to go all out for her daughter’s wedding, after all, “no expense spared,” is the mantra of wedding planner and mother-of-the-bride. The bride is ready to shake things up by wondering should a new normal need to be created once the world comes out of its seclusion.
Rather than having a traditional wedding with all the trimmings, as has been expected, the bride would like to go low waste, environmentally friendly, and economically conscious. What makes this even more interesting is that the bride feels more comfortable having this discussion with the wedding planner and not her mother (with whom she has been living during the pandemic). If this was not already complicated enough, the bride is not only thinking about her own future but also that of her unborn child.
Nicco Lorrenzo Garcia, as the wedding planner, switches from dealing with a bride he believes to be having a bit of breakdown, to realizing that she is really looking to change the concept of what a wedding should be with ease. It is the wedding planner that goes through the most change during the production. Anita Majumder was delightful as the bride dealing with the tough questions of how she would like the world to be once she emerges from the lock-down. I look forward to seeing more of her writing and stage work once we enter the theatre again.
I struggled at times buying into the idea that the bride was a young woman completing her schooling, being pregnant, and still being so composed while dealing with her upcoming nuptials. I’m sure, with more time and workshopping, this issue could be mitigated. This could also be the fact that this show is only 20 minutes. You can only do so much in such a short time. With this minor quibble aside Flower Girl had me leaving asking myself some of the same questions the bride posed to herself. I will likely be spending a few days/weeks thinking about what our world will look like once the pandemic has ended.
Flower Girl will be available on Young People’s Theatre YouTube channel through the end of June. Don’t miss the opportunity to see a show that poses some difficult questions as we start the process of getting back to normal, or a new normal.
You can find this performance by following this link https://youtu.be/cyplDmyT60E until June 30.