Go For Gold Audrey Pham: No Mannequins Here, Theatre With Soul

Lunchbox Theatre staged Go for Gold, Audrey Pham, written by Camille Pavlenko, from the 28th of January to the 16th of February 2025. The play is an interesting blend of physical and character-driven humor, with the theme of eccentric mentorship serving as its dynamic heartbeat. The play follows Audrey Pham, a Canadian ski ballet competitor who finds herself in an unusual living arrangement with Birchwoman—an eccentric curio-shop owner locally known by the communal epithet the Wicked Witch of West Kensington. Though the relationship between Audrey and Birchwoman is fraught with tension, there is an elective affinity (unspoken bond) that draws them closer. Both need inclusion and acceptance—Audrey, having been shunned by her mother, and Birchwoman, a semi-pariah living on the cultural periphery of Calgary. We find out during the play that Birchwoman has an inability to sell certain objects in her store—each item is a memory-laden artifact. We can see Birchwoman's anaclitic reliance (strong emotional dependence) on the objects in her store through the conceptual lens of Jacques Lacan's (French Psychoanalyst) idea of objet petit a (the elusive thing we chase but can never fully grasp, thereby keeping our desire alive). These objects do not represent something; they fulfill quite a different purpose—they replenish an inner need to sustain desire. These objects grow more important for her as she ages. This makes complete sense, as we grow older, our desires expand but our ability to fulfill them diminishes. If we cannot attain the object of our desire, we can, at the very least, hold onto the longing it produces. This longing is what these objects represent to the Birchwoman. We find out that Birchwoman has lived many lives in one life; this is why she comes across as someone who does not conform to a static identity. She is not fully anchored to her past, nor is she entirely present in the moment. Her identity, like the objects in her store, is a patchwork of memories and experiences, existing in a state of flux. Her store (represented very well by the set design) looks disheveled; there is no thematic continuity in the store, a philosophical complement to her existence. Just as her shop resists a unifying theme, so too does she resist a unifying sense of self. This is a strange setting for Audrey Pham to find her footing in the world, to regain her sense of self, and to centralize her individual power in achieving something great. Yet, true to the existentialist mantra that existence precedes essence (we are not born with fixed identities; we define ourselves through our choices and actions), this is the perfect environment for self-creation, providing her the impetus to shape her own ambition and identity. They are both at different arcs in their journey, the Birchwoman's life has become about preservation and not progression, this is antithetical to how she has lived her life, when Audrey finds her, she has ossified into her fears. She cycles through past desires without seeking resolution, this is why she has become desperately attached to her curios. Audrey seeks to use success to define who she is, her sense of self is shaped by what she does not yet have (Olympic medal). They are brought together because each represents what the other lacks. Their meeting is not co-incidental but necessary.

What I thoroughly enjoyed about this play was the tacit suggestion that mentorship can come in many forms and sizes, it is not always comfortable, and both the mentor and the mentee will have to exhibit vulnerability and share their losses if they are to extract anything psychologically significant from the relationship. After a while it is hard to tell anymore, who is mentoring who here? The Birchwoman needs Audrey as much as Audrey needs her, their guidance of each other is cyclical, shifting between resistance, anger, respect and ultimately transformation. The play also shows us that female lineage of knowledge (signified by the Birchwoman) can be much more socially impactful than masculine-influenced hierarchical models of mentorship. This accords with ethics of care model developed by Carol Gilligan (Feminist & Psychologist), arguing that, sometimes, good moral decision making is shaped by relationships, responsiveness and emotional connection. This is a uniquely feminine (I do not mean in the biological or gender sense but in the sense of a relational approach to knowledge that puts a premium on empathy and contextual understanding) perspective, and it operates very differently from masculine models of knowledge and mentorship (hierarchical, structured and outcome driven). A tacit theme in the play it is that mentorship is not always a structured and calculated experience, sometimes it is just two people coming together to make sense of the world as it unfolds, grasping not at certainty but at the shifting shape of meaning itself. Each person incomplete, seeking an answer that neither fully possesses nor has answers to. Women (again, I do not refer to an essence of womanhood, but the archetype, whatever human body it expresses itself through) seem to know this intuitively, as if drawn to a form of knowing that does not demand analytical closure but thrives in ambiguity. I loved the Birchwoman's character, she embodies the unresolved and perpetual becoming that marks every life. It does not end there though, becoming must move towards purpose of some sort, but it is not necessarily a metaphysical, or outcome-driven, purpose of some sort. What is the purpose? Stay fluid, stay open - for what is the alternative? To retreat in the comfortable sepulcher of memory? to substitute analytical and emotional resolution for lived experience? The underlying ethos of the play will tell us quite clearly that this is no way to live a life. There is no final point of resolution, there is only staggered movement, punctuated by moments of insight- never linear but elliptical.

The set was excellent, Julia Kim built a psycho-spatial representation that indicated all too well the personality structure of the Birchwoman, her fragmented yet deeply layered personality. I kept looking at the wonderful curios on the set trying to piece together how they represented the inner life of the Birchwoman. Cassie Holmes does a great job with the lights, her work not only illumined but carved out distinct dramatic spaces for the revelation of empathy, tension and conflict. I will be looking out for more of her lighting work, it is very, very interesting. The director Bronwyn Steinberg & assistant director Heather Pattengale have represented this play with authenticity and keen sensitivity. They seem to have embraced the performative vulnerabilities of the actors, allowing dramatic rawness to emerge without unnecessary distortion or artificial restraint. There are moments where the performance comes across as incomplete and unfinished, but it works here, it actually works quite well. The production feels lived rather than performed, and for the few people who read the rants on this blog, you'll know that I am big on that. A polished and mechanical performance with no soul is much, much worse than an unpolished performance with soul, in fact to put it plainly the former makes me shudder with unease, it is the theatrical equivalent of watching a taxidermized animal on stage or watching a mannequin going through the motions of being human. This production has none of that, there was soul on that stage, and even though there were some awkward pauses this only underscored the fact that it was live, messy and electric. The script has lovely little motifs which I will not get into for fear of laying too much out for a prospective audience, but suffice to say it is a good script, one that employs popular archetypes and enduring emotional themes. Kira Bradley was lovely as the Birchwoman, some notes were on point, some off, but on the whole, she embodied the complexity of her character with endearing affability. Ali DeRegt was quirky, funny and confident, portraying the character with winsome innocence and vulnerability. Some sections in her performance were less convincing than others but on the whole, it was good work. Her mime section with the skis (will not describe in detail as it would spoil it for a prospective audience) was absolutely adorable. The chemistry between Bradley and DeRegt was real, it was not perfect, and I quite think that's alright, maybe that's representative of relationships suffused with conflict and love, there is no perfect dynamic to them, they are constantly on the edge of a shifting cusp of misunderstanding and alignment. The chemistry worked in the intimate setting of the small theatrical space.

Go for Gold Audrey Pham finds truth in vulnerability, presence in imperfection and meaning in the astounding resilience of femininity.

Feedback - the execution of the humor had sitcom-like quality in some places, worked well for this small setting, may not work for a larger setting.

Rating - 7.5