Unexpecting

Studio 16, 1551 West 7^th Avenue, to May 21, 2023
Tickets from $15 (Reduced Barrier Ticket); $34.00 (General Admission) at www.zeezeetheatre.ca

Posted May 7, 2023

The Loneliness of the Disgruntled Critic: it’s a horrible feeling, sitting in a theatre surrounded by people laughing their faces off and you’re not. That’s what happened to me at the opening of Unexpecting, a world premiere written by Bronwyn Carradine, an up-and-coming Vancouver playwright.

I get it, I do: queer folk have a difficult time becoming parents. Director Cameron Mackenzie’s program notes about his and his partner Dave Deveau’s own struggle to become parents reads like a horror story of miscarriages and failed IVF procedures; I’m sure Mackenzie and Deveau are not the exception.

But, subtitled A Comedy About Modern Motherhood, Unexpecting relies heavily on a lot of farcical elements, physical comedy and slapstick to make the point. Are Carradine’s characters real? If not, how can I invest in them? It took until Act 2 for me to engage.

Annie (Rahat Saini) is a writer –  she wrote a best-selling novel years ago and hasn’t written one since then.  Her partner Jo (Jessica Heafey) is a gallery owner and hard-working artist; a whole lot of her very large paintings of colourful vulva’s hang all  over their apartment. When Unexpecting opens, Annie is preparing for an interview for a tenure track university position in the Creative Writing department; it’s a job that will provide financial stability for them and for the soon-to-be born baby that they are going to adopt. A lot of time is spent figuring out how Annie is supposed to wear the most gawdawful blouse you can imagine to the interview. And off she goes, looking like an escapee from the circus.

After the interview, which we do not see,  Annie meets up for a drink with her old friend Pam (Melissa Oei), a brash, loud, brightly lip-sticked head writer of a hit vampire series out of LA. Pam offers Annie a job in the writing room.

Should Annie take the university job and play it safe? Or should she do something bold, move to LA and kickstart her writing career? Does she discuss her options with her partner Jo? Uh-uh.

When the birth mother of the baby Annie and Jo are going to adopt turns up at their apartment, all hell breaks loose. Hide the biggest of the paintings. Hide Jo’s tools. Hide the empties. Hide Pam who has turned up looking for Annie who has walked out after a fight with Jo. It’s a whirlwind that leaves Jo hyperventilating when Sawyer (Elizabeth Barrett) arrives very, very pregnant and unexpectedly.

Unexpecting finally develops some depth very close to the end but it takes almost two hours to get there. Meanwhile, the audience is rolling in the aisles. And that’s great. Standing ovation. Great.

All this mayhem happens on the completely transformed Studio 16 stage with set designed  by Lachlin Johnston: far left to far right with a spiral staircase leading up to a bedroom. Paintings everywhere. There’s a kitchen. Living room. Foyer. Basically, there’s a whole apartment plus a small bar table with a painted Vancouver skyline behind it. It’s big.

Presented by Zee Zee Theatre, the comedy is big. The performances are big with the exception of Elizabeth Barrett who, mercifully, plays the role of the expectant mother with wide-eyed, quiet innocence. Everything else is big. And it all got big laughs from start to finish on opening night.

Trying to figure out why Unexpecting didn’t work for me, I came across a comment in the press release that said Unexpecting was “inspired by Carradine’s adolescent affection for romantic comedies.” (Interesting word order; is that ‘adolescent affection’ or affection when Carradine was an adolescent?) Anyway, that’s why I missed this boat: romantic comedies have never been my thing.

But maybe they’re yours. And if they are, you can expect to love Unexpecting. Prepare to laugh yourself silly.