Do You Take This Man

Joanna has never been fond of responsibility but the big question has been asked, the decision made and now the day it all led to has arrived...

Play Reviews

“How many times have we said ‘if you didn’t laugh, you’d cry’? How many times has it been as true as in this show? Veteran Fringers will recognize Sarah Quick from sell-out performances for Thanks for the Mammaries, and The Men Commandments in years gone by.

This year she shifts gears to bring us a show as devastating as it is devastatingly funny. At the beginning of this show, Johanna is more than just a bit reminiscent of Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw – looking for love in all the wrong places and grabbing a handful of fun wherever she can find it as a substitute. Johanna joins the great besotted when she meets a man who is, appropriately enough, pretty much ‘sotted’ in his own right when he first professes love. The course of true love runs smoothly enough, leading to a wedding complete with hangers-on who are all too eager to be invited once they hear there’s to be a hot buffet.Marriage, however, brings challenges in thoroughly uncharted waters. Life has a way of throwing us curve balls, and true intimacy and commitment makes demands on Johanna that none of us would want to be asked to fulfill. The choices and decisions in this show are a testament to our human capacity for love and compassion. Take a tissue and someone you love.”

— CBC WINNIPEG

“I think the best description for what I saw happening in the audience would be that this play absolutely shattered the people. I haven’t actually heard audible sobs echoing through a theatre before, the audience was in tears.

Basically what happens is that Sarah Quick takes her audience on an emotional journey. There’s lots of laughter, lots of devastating honesty and it’s very bawdy in parts as well, but vulnerable at the same time. She opens herself up to the audience, allows us in which is wonderful to look at. “Right off the top I have to say that I can’t go into details [about the plot] because to do so would really ruin the play for anybody going to see it. There are a lot of twists and turns within the script.“ Quick combines humour and despair. She will plunge you into absolute tragedy and despair and then fire off a screamingly funny one liner joke the next minute. “Her presentation is very direct, almost detached in a way, even clinical in delivery which make the words and the situations and the story even more tragic because we have a very strong woman up on stage.“ [It is] Very much a rollercoaster, up and down. Quick has written a script that is moving, devastating, honest and it’s just an absolutely beautifully constructed piece of writing.“ This is a play which really should be on the must see list.”

— CBC Radio Edmonton (Transcript)

Gallery Block

These are example images. Double-click here to replace these images with your own content. Learn more