Theatre Inconnu presents - as part of the 2025 Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival...
2025 Victoria Fringe Festival
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Intrepid Studio, 2- 1609 Blanshard Street
Victoria, BC
Thursday, Aug. 21 - 8:15pm
Saturday, Aug. 23 - 12:30pm
Sunday, Aug. 24 - 7:30pm
Friday, Aug 29 - 5:30pm
Saturday, Aug 30 - 6:00pm
Sunday, Aug. 31 - 12:30pm
The show is one hour in length
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Edmonton Journal
"'Mother remembers being eight years old and having Scarlet Fever in Kindersley. But she can’t remember what she had for breakfast,' says Beth, the primary caregiver for her ailing mother, a once-proud woman who has difficulty with short-term memories and mobility. Beth struggles as she navigates an emotional minefield of self-doubt made worse by nosy family members and a system that fails at every turn. She talks about the difficulties of maintaining friendships and finding time for activities with her husband, balancing self-care with being a caregiver. Water People is not an easy show to watch, especially for those who have first-hand experience care-giving for a family member. But it’s also an important show, one that pulls back the curtain on the realities of what happens to us all as we age. Ellen Arrand has a slow and steady pace, a powerful juxtaposition to the emotional tale she weaves. It’s a solid show, one with a big heart for all of the caregivers of the world.
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Check the Program (Victoria)
"Local playwright and actor Ellen Arrand (Trutch Street Women) has crafted a wonderfully delicate monologue here that’s as engaging and compelling as it is lovingly layered. While it will likely most resonate with anyone familiar with the struggle to balance aging parents, creative aspirations and tightening finances, you really don’t have to fit into any of those categories to enjoy this show. Directed with minimal but effective staging by local veteran Clayton Jevne, Water People dips into Dylan Thomas-like territory thanks to its strong mix of memory, home, family, community, physical details, interior reflections and cadenced delivery. While Arrand does little more than stand centre-stage and tell us a story, it’s hard not to be captivated by the simplest details as we (to quote her script) 'listen with the third ear, the ear of the heart.' The complete antithesis to all those stereotypically 'kooky' Fringe tropes, Water People eschews any naked angsty improv dancing for a simple tale beautifully told."
About the play
When the system fails, Beth begins caring for her aging disabled mother. It seemed the right thing to do at the time. But an ill-intentioned
social worker, an estranged sibling, a high maintenance cat - and the woman in the mirror - are now “writing” the story that is defining
Beth’s life. Water People is a heartfelt expression of one woman’s struggle to provide her mother with a life of dignity while keeping her
own dreams alive.
About Ellen
Ellen Arrand is a published novelist - Public Works; Private Souls (Beach Holme) & Hotel Abundancia (Ekstasis Editions), short story writer
(various literary magazines), and Playwright – The Bridge, Bear Me Stiffly Up & Trutch Street Women (the latter two published by Ekstasis), and Water People. She studied playwriting during her Master of Fine Arts program (Guelph University) with Judith Thompson and Marilyn Bowering. Trutch Street Women was a finalist in the Canadian National Playwriting Competition (2005). Ellen’s plays have been produced both by Theatre Inconnu (Victoria). and Theatre One (Nanaimo) with Ellen performing in nearly all the productions.
For more detailed information about the show, and Ellen Arrand,
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Theatre Inconnu acknowledges and respects the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Xʷsepsəm/Esquimalt) Peoples, on whose territory we create and present our art, and the Lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.
