Burning Mom parks its camper at the Kay Meek Arts Centre, the Anvil Theatre, and the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in January
Playwright Mieko Ouchi’s story of one woman’s self-discovery in the Nevada Desert is rooted in her mother’s true story
Burning Mom. Photo by Moonrider Productions
The Arts Club Theatre Company presents Burning Mom at the Kay Meek Arts Centre on January 8 and 9; the Anvil Theatre on January 10 and 11; the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts on January 25; and other theatres throughout the Lower Mainland
SUSINN MCFARLEN IS taking her popular solo theatre show about a woman who heads from Calgary to the Burning Man festival in Nevada on the road.
The Arts Club Theatre Company show we called “honest, open, and ultimately comfortable in its own skin” when it debuted at the Granville Island Stage last April is hitting the Kay Meek Arts Centre, the Anvil Theatre, and the Shadbolt Centre in the coming month.
McFarlen’s character Dorothy begins a journey set in motion by grief, after the sudden death of her husband. And so she decides to honour his retirement dream of heading to the counterculture freakout in the Nevada desert. And with the festival’s emphasis on self-reliance and self-expression, it turns out to be exactly the place where she can find herself again. There’s just one small hiccup: she still has to learn how to drive the camper—let alone park it once she gets going. (Prepare to be wowed by set designer Patrick Rizzotti’s realistic-looking rendering of the road beast.)
Part of the reason the show works is McFarlen: she captures Dorothy’s mix of self-deprecating humour, earthy warmth, and enduring curiosity. The other is simply that playwright Mieko Ouchi has rooted the show in real life, basing all of it on her own mother’s journey, at 63, through the loss of her husband.
We won’t give away the rest, except to say Dorothy finally learns to let go and find new community through art amid the inclusive embrace of the Burning Man devotees. 
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