A Mortal Coil Performance Society production. At the Sharing Farm in Richmond on August 7. Continues to August 15

It wasn’t how I thought I’d spend my Friday night: on a farm in Richmond with 50-odd people, all lined up behind each other one-by-one, fighting our way through a tightly packed 10-foot tall circular sunflower maze.

But elbowing past thick stalks, pushing back rough green leaves the size of my face and ducking under huge yellow petals—I was suddenly a little kid again. Every ounce of grownup cynicism and tension was gone, replaced by this weird, familiar feeling of childlike wonder. That is the magic of Mortal Coil’s new site-specific work, The Faerie Play.

Set throughout the Sharing Farm, a phenomenal hidden gem in Richmond, the family-friendly production features small woodland puppets, adorable singing kids, and a scarecrow on stilts.

The story follows Miss Potts (played with comedic gusto by Sharon Bayly), who is attempting to put on a play with a group of children dressed as various vegetables, herbs, and fruits. Dandelion/Mackenzie (the adorable Mackenzie Paul) is a bit mischievous but is also treated as an outsider because dandelions are “just weeds". When Miss Potts notices Mackenzie is missing, the children insist on entering the fairies’ woods where humans are forbidden. The lonely Dandelion Fairy (great puppet work from Alexandra Wever) has taken Mackenzie and turns her into a fairy. The only way to turn her back is for the other children to collect her footprints, tears, and heartbeat. 

 Miss Potts jokes that these items are a “bit hippie” to her, but this is where the play really coalesces its influences: the “hippie” element of nature, the slightly sinister Grimm fairy tales (at least one very young audience member was truly scared regarding Mackenzie’s disappearance), and fantastical indigenous oral stories.

The Faerie Play also achieves the rare feat of crafting a truly wonderful resolution that never panders. It’s packed with heartfelt lines, such as when Dandelion Fairy confesses, “I wanted to hang out with her because she thought I was a something, not a nothing.” But the emotion is balanced nicely by the play’s innate oddness—say, the wise snail puppet, who represents time’s endless march forward, naturally, and who knows exactly when to declare, “Enough preaching.” 

 Whether you have children or not, The Faerie Play is a charming and lovely way to spend 75 minutes. Plus, the Sharing Farm, which grows food for food banks, is such a splendid backdrop, it’s impossible to leave without a serious vegetable craving, making this theatre that’s good for your heart in more ways than one.