By: Tam Nguyen
The Bright Young Things is a play about a group of eight young artists and aristocrats trying to readjust to society after World War I and Spanish Flu pandemic in the 1920s. It deals with the everlasting afflictions of young adults, like the pursuit of happiness and quest for purpose, alongside a satirical commentary on the vanity of the wealthy class. As part of over 85 artists and performers at the Vancouver Fringe Festival, the play was written by Folding Camera Theatre, who also made up the cast. The company emerged from graduates of Langara’s Studio 58 program, under the supervision of director and facilitator, Ming Hudson.
The entire play takes place over the course of one night, at an eventful dinner party in a fancy ballroom. Performers employ the Tableau technique, where some characters stand still to represent a visual background, while the spotlight illuminates those delivering lines. This creates a realistic environment, where audience members feel like somebody walking through the party, only hearing snippets of conversation and confrontations.
“Bright Young Things” was a phrase used by the press to describe rebellious English socialites of the 1920s. At its core, The Bright Young Things features a cunning cast of characters: the play begins with Celina Ross, the host of the party. A deeply indulgent hedonist, Celina believes “life is a celebration.” Her best friend, Stephen, is the life of the party. Then, Thomas, a war veteran, arrives to reunite with old friends. Two famous actresses, Diana and Scarlet, along with Everett, an arrogant photographer, join in later on. Then there is Ron, a homely painter who was invited off the curb. Finally, ambitious writer and Celina’s sister, Olivia Ross, makes her unpleasant arrival.
The Bright Young Things is one of the most well-written plays I’ve ever seen, with Gatsby-esque party set decorations, jazz music, and mesmerizing acting. I met Emma Rose Gold, who plays Olivia Ross, at the award showcase night, and we had a pleasant conversation.
According to Gold, not only does the play deal with vanity, but it’s also about “how different people deal with traumas and hardship, and how they wind up discovering their own.” At the play’s climax, Olivia and Celina get into a fight because of their contradicting values on life. Olivia writes articles exposing celebrity vanity, including Celina’s frivolous parties and friends, which is something Celina cannot forgive her for. This type of moral dilemma continues today; we are all navigating in the fog.
Gold explained that if the characters hadn’t “dealt with this collective trauma, they would have made some different decisions. But I think that they needed some way to feel as though they were gaining control of their own destiny.”
This hit a little too close to home, considering we’re still dealing with the impacts of COVID-19, along with other collective traumas like inflation and climate change. With a lot of uncertainty right now, young adults are still figuring out how to survive, let alone plan their futures. Even though the play was set in the 1920s, grieving the loss of being young amid the tumultuous quest for purpose in life is still very much relevant in today’s society.
As a character-driven piece with eight main characters and eight writers who have their own viewpoints, the process of creating the play required a tremendous amount of effort, teamwork, and most importantly, change. Gold recalled, “Eight people trying to write something and make it into a cohesive story in an hour is absurd. So, we had a number of sessions where we would just read it all as a group, and then we had discussions about what we felt we wanted trajectories for characters to be, what different concepts we had, and what we thought would work and what didn’t.”
“In rehearsals, we allowed it to be very fluid, and for things to change all the time,” she said.
As both an actor and writer, Gold opened up about how she needed two distinctive lenses when approaching the play. “As a writer, it’s all about what serves the story best, and how you find these points that are important,” she said. “It was a very critical lens we were looking through when it comes to writing things, but when it comes to being an actor, it’s almost a selfish lens. You only focus on yourself and your character, so you stop having empathy for the characters in the story.”
Gold also praised the Fringe Festival for its lottery selection system, in which performers submit their works to Fringe, and they literally choose performances “out of a hat” to be featured. While mainstream theatre is “all about curated work,” she said, “with Fringe, what I like about it is that it gives absolutely everyone an opportunity to show off a story. You can write about quite literally anything, and you can have your work shown, and and you can have people pay to come see your show.” Fringe gives opportunities to people who aren’t necessarily pursuing theatre as a career, but it “brings them joy.”
The play ends on a hopeful note, when Olivia and Thomas, the two most misunderstood characters, have a heart-to-heart conversation in a garden about learning to live in the present and letting things go, and have a romantic slow dance.
