Western Edge Theatre is looking to get theatre-goers laughing scared as it explores the tale of Baba Yaga.
Yaga is a thriller mystery by Victoria playwright Kat Sandler, and Jonathan Greenway, artistic director at Western Edge, said the play challenges perspectives.
“It’s a really exciting play. It’s something different. It is something that people can come and enjoy a piece of epic theatre that you don’t often get to have access to in Nanaimo that is different, scary and tells a powerful story about the roles of women in smaller communities and the roles in which men, traditional men especially in 2025, can look and see, ‘hey I need to check my own toxic masculinity and the small things I do.’”
The story starts when a detective is tasked with finding out what happened to a missing university student from the small town of Whittock.
“Sort of a supernatural ‘something weird is going on in town’ but very fast dialogue, very fun and upbeat, but there’s this element of thriller and psychological mayhem that is going on, interlaced with these monologues from Baba Yaga where she come in and sort of narrates from the background these things that are sort of reflective of the play and what is going on,” Greenway said.
Throughout the two and a half hour production, the audience gets to watch the detective interview women in the town as the story of what happened to the missing student unfolds.
“It evolves into sort of a surrealist thriller horror by the end, veering away from the X Files and more into something close to like Midsommer or The Witch and other kinds of supernatural thriller horror shows,” the director said.
There are four actors in the production and the two leading women play multiple characters throughout. Greenway said it is a production full of nuance and mystery that will keep viewers on the edge of their seat.
“It’s a beast of a play,” he said. “It’s a play that is one of the biggest undertakings I have personally done as a director and lead designer on so there’s a lot of moving parts – there’s a huge amount of props, there’s a huge amount of choreography.”
He said Western Edge hopes to attract young adults to the theatre with edgy pieces that challenge what he call the traditional “living room drama or kitchen farces.”
“I think it can be something for everybody but very much not for everybody ironically in the sense that there is a lot of content warnings,” he said. “There's intense sexuality and violence and sexual violence, there is regular old violence, there’s blood, there’s animal cruelty, there is strong language throughout and just general fear.”
Yaga opens on Friday, Feb. 7, at the OV Arts Centre and will continue Feb. 8 and Feb. 13-16. Tickets can be purchased online at http://westernedge.org and cost $15 for students and young adults, $24 for seniors and $28 for adults.
