I went to the opening show of Tiny Treasures at MTYP on Friday night. This story is about a boy named James who is very busy caring for his unwell mother, and his younger sister.

As soon as I walked into the theatre, I noticed that two of the characters were already on stage: two live fish in a fishbowl!

The set looked very plain at the beginning of the play – just some different sized tables, with no visible props.  But that was deceiving, because after the play began, James started opening drawers and doors and setting up the props.  He took out trays, dishes and even a clothes line!

Most of the play is a one-person monologue. The choice to have James tell the audience what all the other characters are saying around him, instead of having other actors play those characters, makes us feel James’ sense of responsibility for everyone around him.

My favourite part of the play was James’ identification of similes and metaphors throughout the play, something he was learning in his English class in school. The most powerful visual metaphor I saw during the play was the mother’s costume. Her clothing seemed to be used as a metaphor for her health.  At the beginning of the play she was wearing an oversized robe, big and heavy.  She walked around the stage very slowly as if she was weighed down by it. Around the middle of the play, she took off the big robe and was wearing a much smaller robe.  By the end of the play, when she was moving around faster and talking to James more, she was wearing lighter clothing.  As if both the physical weight of the clothes, and her emotional weight were lighter.

I would highly recommend seeing this play.  While it does broach heavier subject matter, they did a wonderful job of balancing that with comedic moments to make it more lighthearted for young theatre goers.

• Eliza Binding