Frankie

Mary Ellen MacLean is a powder keg, a dynamo, an explosion of energy crammed into a compact package. She brings to life a stage full of characters as she tells the story of Frankie, a middle-aged lesbian attending her high school reunion in small town Nova Scotia. The amount of physical energy she expends—skating across the stage, erupting into a white-hot rage, transforming herself into a vibrating, attention-seeking seven-year -old—is awesome to watch. The staging and lighting are both simple and sophisticated, as is the story itself. We know from the beginning that high school is not going to end well for Frankie’s drag queen friend Joey, but we sign on for the journey anyway as Frankie relives the anguish (and the joy) of growing up queer. –Kate Watson