Courtney Ch'ng Lancaster (Photo by Bruce Zinger)
Disturbances
by Ramya Jegatheesan
@RamyaJImages
In a sleepy little fishing town somewhere in Quebec, a mermaid is pulled from the river. She ensnares the men, and soon the town becomes a ghost town bereft of wives and work.
Twenty years later, the mermaid serves up fish and chips at a local dive while her daughter strips in a bar as the men weep, spellbound by her beauty but cursed because any one of them could be her father.
Québecois playwright Sarah Berthiaume’s The Flood Thereafter (translated by Nadine Desrochers) is a beautifully lyrical play that delights in taboo. Incest, infidelity, and the contested female body are all woven into this darkly fantastical narrative.
