My thoughts on “Paisley Poppies”

by Rachel Reiva | 8/6/09 • 5. Caity Shea Violette: Paisley Poppies

A bizarre comedy featuring a teenage girl and her best friend; a stalker; and her overly Minnesotan mother. Their reality drastically changes after a sudden turn of events.

the teen fringer is the blog of rachel reiva, one of seven bloggers covering the minnesota fringe festival for the daily planet.

I had seen the first version of this show last year when I and Playwright Caity Shea were in the same playwrights workshop. When she submitted it to the Fringe I was excited to see if she had done anything new with her play. It is still pretty much the same but some hilarious scenes were added. Shannon Foy and Charlotte Calvert really did some great acting as daughter and mother. When they did the sex talk it just was great to see how animated Charlotte could get with her mother character.

For those who haven’t seen the show yet, Emma (Shannon Foy) is a teenager with a mother (Charlotte Calvert), a best friend named Barbie and a stalker named Kyle. In the original version that I saw last year, Kyle accidentally kills Barbie and Emma and Kyle reconcile their relationship. In this version Kyle still kills Barbie, but this time Emma vents her anger and I find the estrangement between Emma and her stalker to be a more real result.

The major draw back to this version is the ending. Emma does a long monologue, and then listens to a voice message left by her friend right before she died. This scene did not work and if the play gets remounted the scene could use a rewrite.