When Frank Warren started leaving blank, self-addressed postcards around, asking strangers to send him their secrets, he likely didn’t intend them to be read aloud.
While the theatrical interpretation of one of the world’s most popular blogs succeeds in bringing the same meditations on religion, rape, family, and suicide to the fore as the website, PostSecret: The Show – created by Warren and Vancouver creatives TJ Dawe, Kahlil Ashanti and Justin Sudds – fails to truly embrace its medium.
Blending live music, postcard slides, actor and audience confessions, and reenactments of interactions between members of the PostSecret community, the play rarely reaches further than a Pecha Kucha presentation, and with a lot more fretting. (As they recite secrets from other peoples’ lives, it’s understandable that the capable actors Ashanti, Ming Hudson and Nicolle Nattrass are reduced to delivering their lines in mostly concerned tones.)
Thankfully, director Dawe – playing to the strengths of his undeniably emotional source material – deftly never lets any one mood linger too long. As the stickiness of all that confession coats the room, it is often quickly washed away with tears or laughter, and on that count the cast delivers with timing to spare.
For fans of the blog who want to learn more about its history, and some of the interesting side stories it has spawned, this retelling puts a fresh spin on the 10-year-old concept. But, for most, these stories can be experienced firsthand at, you guessed it, PostSecret.com.
• PostSecret: The Show runs until Feb. 7 at the Firehall Arts Centre (280 East Cordova). FireHallArtsCentre.ca.
