MTYP season opener tackles issues of poverty and compassion with style

It seems fitting that Manitoba Theatre for Young People opened its latest show on a day when the province's minimum wage went up — meaning Manitoba's lowest wage earners will make an extra 30 cents an hour.

That's because MTYP's new season kicks off with David S. Craig's popular 2001 play Danny, King of the Basement — a lovably whimsy-filled look at the very serious issues that come along with being poor in Canada.

It centres around Danny (Tristan Carlucci). He lives with his unemployed mother Louise (Toni Reimer) and has a rich imagination, but not a lot of money. As a result, they've had to move eight times in two years, making Danny "the king of moving."

The play opens with Danny and his mom rushing out of their latest bad situation: "He didn't turn out to be Prince Charming, did he?" says Louise, as she and Danny sneak out the door with their few possessions.

Indeed, there are a lot of dark tones in Craig's script, which is anything but a standard fairy tale. Louise tearfully realizes she doesn't know when Danny last had a new pair of shoes, Danny's neighbour Angelo (Joseph Sevillo) lives with a dad who's so terrifying, he's represented as a roaring dinosaur and his other neighbour Penelope (Beverly Ndukwu) has money, but is torn between divorced parents who use her as a go-between for their fights.

But Craig smartly makes the heavy material accessible to a young audience. Danny falls back on his ample imagination to enrich his impoverished life, drawing everyone around him into a world where he's a secret agent, his invisible "super coat" means he's never cold and anxieties can be amputated with a bit of make-believe surgery.

Powerful messages mixed with fun performances

That all means there's actually a lot of fun in director Ann Hodges' snappy, hour-long production.

Her four-person cast throw themselves into Danny's world admirably with likable performances, especially Carlucci as the irrepressibly-upbeat Danny. He and Reimer have a believable, charming chemistry as son and mother. And Ndukwu and Sevillo are convincing as kids, thanks in large part to Craig's script, in which kids actually speak like kids.

Sean McMullen's set helps draw us into Danny's world as well. It's backed by storybook-like houses, with nary a right angle to be seen. Like the rest of Danny's world, things aren't quite what they should be — but there's still an appealing imaginative quality to it.

Young audiences will find themselves engaged by the realistic characters and ample humour in the script and performances. But they'll also take away the play's still-powerful messages about compassion, fairness and living in a world where those qualities are sometimes absent.

It's thoughtful and engrossing. And during an election season when there's a lot of talk about the fabled middle-class and not a lot about Canada's poorest citizens, it may also be a must-see for the next generation of voters.

Danny, King of the Basement runs at Manitoba Theatre for Young People until Oct. 18.