The Cultch Historic Theatre to March 22, 2026
Tickets from $35 at 604-251-1363 or www.thecultch.com
Posted March 15, 2026
Theatre has been described as communion, a coming together, and seldom have I felt that sense of unity as profoundly as I did in the penultimate moments of People, Places & Things. There comes a time in this play when I think everyone in the Cultch Historic Theatre was praying for a certain something to happen; it was palpable. It reminded me of years ago when watching The Sword of the Samurai at the old Varsity Theatre, someone could not restrain themselves and shouted out to the hero who is about to be ambushed, “Don’t go!” The Cultch moment is different but the same: everyone experiencing the same sensation at the same time. This time, no one shouted out.
People, Places & Things, in spite of often being intelligently funny, is a tough show to watch. We meet actor Nina (Tess Degenstein) as she melts down during a performance of Chekhov’s The Seagull. An alcoholic also addicted to an array of drugs, she’s in rough shape. She checks into rehab but is resistant to treatment and is unwilling to submit to the 12 Steps’ “higher being” concept even though she’s told this higher being is “religiously neutral”. She intellectualizes everything, feels superior to everyone in group therapy sessions, refuses even to give her real name. “I’m healthy overall. I just want a tune up.” Obviously, her condition goes from bad to worse.
Act 1 is ninety minutes of watching someone implode. It’s a car wreck that you can’t take your eyes off. “I am trying to save your life,” the therapist (Jennifer Clement, also playing Nina’s mother) tells her but does Nina care? “People who aren’t addicted to something are really missing something,” she says.
Act 2 is fifty minutes long and in almost the last moment of the play, it delivers a punch so intense, I felt it in my gut.
But People, Places & Things is not for everyone and I wonder if it could actually trigger someone close to the same edge as Nina. As for Duncan Macmillan’s script, the group sessions, which consume a lot of time, do not add appreciably to our understanding of Nina. (Group participants are played by Aidan Currie, Jesse Lipscombe, Stephen Lobo, Jess McLeod, Kevin McNulty, Monice Peter, Donna Soares and Robert Salvador). And other characters – like Nina’s parents (Jennifer Clement and Kevin McNulty), for example – are thinly sketched.
But as Nina (whose name we eventually discover is really Sarah), Tess Degenstein is brilliant. One wonders how, after several hours of inhabiting Nina/Emma, Degenstein goes home, waters the plants, goes to bed and manages to sleep. The physicality of her character’s addiction is almost unbearable to watch. Mixed in with Emma’s past traumas – which we can never truly believe because she lies compulsively – is the reality of her profession: one minute an ingenue, the next, a mother of three. How easy it must be to lose oneself. Despite Emma’s lies, her superiority and her disdain for those trying to help her, we want her to live and thrive. Degenstein takes us there with a performance that is a visceral, emotional wringer.
Quietly and sweetly underplayed is Stephen Lobo’s Foster while Kevin McNulty, who has cornered the theatre market on slightly bonkers old guys, is another charming, more-than-slightly bonkers old guy whose embrace of a higher power has overtaken him. Without much backstory, Robert Salvador, as Mark, does a decent job of the guy who tries to keep Emma on track.
Director Mindy Parfitt gives People, Places & Things a thoughtful, sensitive and visually exciting production. After the brief Chekhov scene, set designer Amir Ofek and lighting designer Sophie Tang come together to create an endlessly interesting performance area: a white, marble or glass-appearing floor, underlit in a variety of spectacular neon effects: squares of light, bars of light. Dazzling.
The Search Party theatre company, founded by Parfitt, is committed to producing “emotionally powerful and aesthetically rigourous” productions, according to the program notes. Parfitt says she looks for scripts that scare her. “I like working from a place of discomfort and unease.” People, Places & Things springs from that scary place and like all good theatre, leaves you wondering how you would behave, given the same circumstances. But, in this case, you can be grateful that this is theatre, not your life.