Marjorie seems to be doing alright. She regularly attends grief counseling meetings for widows and runs the farm outside of Fort St. John. But unknown to her family and neighbours, she has been talking to her deceased husband every night, his plaid jacket draped over the chair opposite of her at the kitchen table. It’s 1985, three years since Harry was reported missing and presumed dead, along with 83 other men when the Ocean Ranger offshore rig sunk in a storm off the coast of Newfoundland. Actor Alynn Trottier portrays a woman who, while grieving, refuses to become unglued by the experience. She shows Marjorie’s strength, but the role also demands an undercurrent of vulnerability that is not quite there. Sometimes the monologues seem a little too relaxed, and lulls the action, instead of playing on underlying tensions of wanting to move one and yet staying in one place. Still, the play bridges the Ocean Ranger tragedy with recent historic oil rig disasters in the gulf, and asks the question who should be held accountable for the lives lost when things go terribly wrong.

Three and a half out of five stars.