The Pavilion

Director Christopher Comeau follows up his impressive production of Orange Flower Water with another of Craig Wright’s beautifully written plays. The Pavilion has been hailed by critics as “an ‘Our Town’ for our time”, and that comparison is not misleading: like the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s play, an omniscient narrator (Jonathan Bray) orchestrates the action. And, like ‘Our Town’ this is a play, as the Narrator says at the opening, “about time.”

The premise is simple: Peter (Brian Groh) returns to his twenty-year high-school reunion with dreams of winning back Kari (Royana Black), the girl he left behind. Standing in Peter’s way is Kari’s bitter resentment, her husband, and the fact that Peter still hasn’t grown up. As the night progresses, both Peter and Kari are led, through their interactions with a host of characters all played by the virtuosic Narrator, to face the consequences of choices made long ago and start back into life with newfound strength and bittersweet resolve.