Fringe Review: She Has a Name
Stephen Hunt, Calgary Herald
Stephen hunt
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Stephen hunt

She Has a Name

at the Calgary Fringe through August 11

www.calgaryfringe.com

Four Stars

The anything-goes ethos of a fringe festival usually produces an abundance of shows that go for laughs, and the easier and cheaper, the better.

Not so with She Has a Name, a nervy, poignant drama that bravely tackles a subject matter that almost no one will touch with a proscenium stage to save their lives: the Asian sex trafficking trade.

Inspired by a 2008 incident where 121 Burmese women and children were discovered being smuggled into Thailand in an abandoned storage tanker, resulting in 54 deaths, playwright Andrew Kooman has set his sights on exploring one of the grimmest little corners of the human universe.

The victims were part of an international ring of people smuggling, featuring young poor girls who get plucked from villages throughout Asia by human traffickers, who enslave them into working as child prostitutes in brothels.

She Has a Name tells the story of Jason (Carl Kennedy), a Canadian guy, and his relationship with Number 18 (Evelyn Chew), a young Burmese teenage girl his non-profit organization is trying to rescue as part of a larger effort to fight back against sex trafficking.

Buying his way into a Bangkok brothel called The Pearl by posing as a john looking for a little underage company, Jason methodically gathers information and evidence that his organization can use to force the international community to take action against sex trafficking.

At the same time, Jason finds himself, despite his best efforts, developing an emotional connection to Number 18, even as the distance grows between him and wife and family back home in Canada.

Kennedy and Chew do the brunt of the heavy lifting throughout She Has a Name, and both deliver strongly felt, nuanced performances (Kennedy also plays the pimp, in an ingenious bit of double-casting).

That’s only one part of a strong ensemble that also includes Alysa van Haastert (as Jason’s wife back home), Glenda Warkentin (as the NGO head) and Sienna Howell-Holden (as an employee of the brothel), all of whom perform an admirable bit of double duty, tackling their roles along with playing a number of ethereal voices that echo throughout the dark world of the drama.

There’s also a bleak, hopelessness to She Has a Name, namely that the whole, sordid business — much like the narcotics industry — transcends any one individual, casting a heavy shadow over the entire affair.

It’s also challenging getting into the head of Jason, the first world do-gooder trying to implement change in a world of hopeless, almost overwhelming evil.

He’s a good guy, for sure, but why? He’s putting his own marriage and relationship with his children in jeopardy to get involved in a situation that appears to be completely overwhelming.

That sort of conflict creates what can almost feel like a melodramatic conflict at times, but strong direction by Stephen Waldschmidt and effective performances by the talented cast keep you from dwelling too much on that.

There’s just no getting around the fact that by choosing to tell a story about sex trafficking, playwright Kooman had no choice but to create some of the most evil villains ever.