A Killing Snow

Postcard Review by Caroline Russell-King

Show – A Killing Snow

Playwright – Paul Ciufo

Production Company/Theatre space – (Professional)Vertigo Theatre / The Playhouse

Length – 2 Acts (2 hours 20 minutes– one intermission)

Genre/s – Mystery

Premise – A professor rescues four stranded drivers in a blizzard after a fatal car accident and one by one they slowly get murdered...

Why this play? Why now? – Murder mystery set in Ontario by a Canadian playwright.

Curiosities – Why did highly educated characters think asking for psychic answers would help?

Notable Moment – (redacted due to spoilers)

Notable writing – New playwrights often make the mistake of throwing lots of different elements into a pot because they work in context in other plays, but then don’t realize or understand when things go awry. Paul Ciufo is not a new playwright but made this mistake. Chocolate cake and sardines in stew doesn’t turn out. This is ostensibly a murder mystery, but in the pot are ingredients including a controlling fates mashup (inaccurate?) of classic literature, psychic visions, dreams, premonitions, a poltergeist leaping book, mystic handwriting on boards & books, shadows of goddesses, and a ghost. The motives for all of character’s actions should be clear and not leave us wondering, why did they do that?

Notable performances – If you saw Lin-Manuel Miranda’s playing Alvi on House opposite Hugh Laurie you’d have a sense of Bernado Pacheco. Pacheco is a magnet and a delight to watch. If award winning actor Andrew Moodie, who has worked nationally, including Stratford and the National Arts Centre looks weak – it must be the direction or the script. He was given role of “The nightmare of an introvert”; playing a teacher, this doesn’t really work.

Notable design/Production – Some of Sound Designer Shelby Reintz’s effects added tension and some distracted. Andy Moros’s lighting plot, either in his design or at the director’s behest, muddied the genre and logic.

Notable direction – Tara Beagan’s director notes talks of the “the complexities of the nightmares living in this script”. Were these complicated or clarified by her direction – it was hard to tell. Obfuscating a storyline by adding additional elements, giant shadows of gods, a ghost turn, and a sofa that thwarts a murderer makes the audience have questions that shouldn’t be part of the post show discussion.

One reason to see this show – Bernado Pacheco.