73 Seconds3.5 stars out of 5Stage 18, Sugar Swing Ballroom (Main)That title is a reference to the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster of 1986. 73 seconds after the launch, the shuttle exploded killing all seven astronauts on board, taking many more hopes and dreams with them. Portal Theatre’s Nathaniel Dunaway and Sarah Cotter deftly take on multiple roles, mostly astronauts or their family members, sketching out the missing in a way that brings meaning to their loss. We learn how the crew’s multi-ethnic makeup packed symbolic value for their communities, and that underneath their occupations (school teacher, science nerds, etc.) Ultimately the show brings lessons on how individual experience shaped each shot into space, how history creates distance around tragedy, and how memories can bridge that.

Source: National Post August 18, 2017 15:33 UTC