MacIvor's Confession an absolute must-go

It’s something of a Daniel MacIvor bonanza in Halifax this week, with both A Beautiful View and Confession (albeit for one night only) playing. How interesting it is to see the two plays back to back, and to pick out themes—truth, death, chairs (okay, that’s not a theme)—shared by both. Confession is the story of three generations of women who spit and spar as they revisit shared memories. (Their relationships are not what you first assume, but unraveling the mystery is part of the delight of this play.) The young girl Kit (Margaret Smith) is all sunshine and roses, the middle-aged woman (Sherry Smith) is bitter, angry and funny, too, and the elderly lady (Marguerite Mc Neil) is fierce and tender. I can’t say enough about the performances of these three actors. Margaret Smith positively radiates hope and goodness, Sherry Smith’s delivery of her anguish-filled monologues is so powerful it almost sucks the air from the room, and McNeil is brilliant as she embodies both hope and disappointment and synthesizes them into something new. I daresay this play will be back, and if it is, don’t miss it!