Between Breaths

Firehall Arts Centre to November 23, 2025

Tickets from $30 at 604-689-0926 or www.firehallartscentre.ca

Posted November 16, 2025

Like many others, I’m fascinated by whales so Robert Chafe’s Between Breaths really floated my boat. Inspired by the true story of Dr. Jon Lien, aka “The Whale Man”, this Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland production, presented by the Firehall Arts Centre, tells a tale of passion, bravery and downright pigheadedness.

Lien, who died in 2010, was born in South Dakota, “where they could only dream of the ocean”, the character in the play tells us. He received a PhD in psychology in the US with a specialization in animal behaviour; in 1968 Jon and his wife Judy moved to Newfoundland where he started an organic farm and taught at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

 He was hired to teach about birds, we’re told, but a couple of years after his arrival in Newfoundland he studied a group of whales trapped in ice before they were freed by the Coast Guard. Lien was hooked. What followed over the course of years was his almost single-handed rescue of 500 whales, most of which were tangled in fishing gear. At first, he was cutting the whales free in order to save the fishermen’s costly gear but once, having looked eyeball-to eyeball with a humpback, his motivation became one of compassion for all manner of marine mammals. In 1979 he founded the Whale Research Group and in 2008 he received the Order of Canada for his work.

When we first meet Dr. Lien he’s in a wheelchair; his head lolls, his eyes are vacant. It looks like he has had a stroke. But it turns out he had suffered a catastrophic vehicle accident from which he never fully recovered. Between Breaths is a series of flashbacks to his whale-rescuing days with his long-suffering sidekick Wayne.

While there are loads of heart-stopping films and videos of whale rescues, how does a small theatre company tell Jon Lien’s tale on a small stage? Ingenuity. Creativity. And lots and lots of heart.

 

Under the direction of Jillian Keiley, Steve O’Connell is Lien and it’s an exceptional performance ranging from comatose Lien to dynamic and exuberant Lien. A wooden bench serves as a small boat, and ropes and netting – strung below the bench – serve as the tangled gear. O’Connell, wearing goggles and brandishing a small knife, leans over the ‘gunwales’ puts his head ‘underwater’, and cuts the ‘whale’ free. Lien is constantly hollering “Bring ‘er in closer” to Wayne (Darryl Hopkins) who’s handling the boat and fearful of getting any closer. The trick, it seems to be, is “to try to get them to calm down” and then to start cutting. The seas are rough, the wind is howling, the dinghy is lurching and Lien is holding on to ropes that have entangled a thirty, forty or fifty-foot whale.

And then we’re back at Lien’s home with his long-suffering wife Judy (Bernardine Stapleton) reminding him about his present state. “My darling”, she asks, “where are you now?”

Backdrop to the performance is a live three-piece band with Andrew Laite, Valmy Assam and Josh Sandu. While the music is a lovely, very Newfoundland touch, is does on occasion drown out the dialogue. This is sometimes deliberate, suggesting the maelstrom that is Lien’s damaged brain but, briefly, at times, it’s hard to hear the dialogue. I attended the opening night performance so it’s possible the sound levels needed to be tweaked.

Between Breaths is a remarkable piece of theatre which, as my colleague Jerry Wasserman pointed out, harkens back to the theatre of the 70’s especially Rick Salutin’s 1837: The Farmers’ Revolt. There definitely is the same vibe, the same requirement for the audience’s imagination. But the predicament of whales is so much a story of our time. Ship strikes. Food scarcity. Warming oceans. Tanker traffic. These leviathans are in desperate need of “whale women” or “whale men” to ensure their survival.

Paul Spong, Paul Watson (Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) and others have dedicated their lives to saving the whales but what’s needed is the political will to turn the tide. Between Breaths and Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland is doing its part; now it’s up to us and our politicians.