Anne of Green Gables: the power of imagination invigorates a classic
13 Jul 2025 - Photos by David Hou

As the audience settles in, Maev Beaty (My Name is Lucy Barton, Letters From Max, Little Menace, Bunny, Orlando), in full Victorian drag, fusses about the stage. She has a stagehand, Josue Laboucane (The Diviners), adjust the lights, and she positions and re-positions a small-scale model of Green Gables. She then welcomes us to a meeting of the Anne of Green Gables book club. It is a mildly meta introduction but Beaty's presence instantly allays any fears anyone had about the necessity of another adaptation of Anne of Green Gables. Beaty is a warmly comic presence and she greets the onstage book club members before beginning a reading of the sacrosanct Lucy Maud Montgomery text. The reading quickly blossoms into a full scale theatrical version of Anne of Green Gables that thrives on the timeless quality of the novel, while also pulling it into the present to emphasize that timelessness. Not a deconstruction or a hagiography, an act of love and theatrical magic. We don't have to see Anne through a different lens, though we do, we get to appreciate her for unique self as well as for her Canadiana icon status.

Like everyone else in the audience, I have seen multiple versions of Anne's story and even read the book somewhere far in the misty past. All the familiar beats are present, the raspberry cordial debacle, the amethyst brooch that goes missing, the hair dye incident, the sick child, but as incarnated by a flexible troupe of book club stans turned thespians it gains an exuberant charm. All helped along by the clever wit of writer/director Kat Sandler (Wildwoman, Yaga, Retreat, Featherweight, Bang Bang, Mustard, Late Night, Bright Lights, Liver, Cockfight, Sucker, Delicacy, Rock). Sandler is a genius at creating dialogue that is laugh out loud funny while also illustrating character, propelling the plot, or making a point. Steven Hao (Salesman in China, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer's Night Dream, Cockroach), who ostensibly wanders on stage as an Anne of Green Gables neophyte, is roped into playing several roles. When he volunteers to play Jane Andrews, he is, in the midst of pulling on a gown, admonished that it would be improper for him to play a girl. His retort of "But I could be the horse?" brings down the house, but also makes an important political point in a subtly sledgehammered manner.

One sees what drew Sandler to this particular text. Anne of Green Gables is at its heart a fable of rising above one's allotted station through hard work, endless optimism and, most importantly, vivid imagination. The parallels to Sandler's career are obvious. Anne is almost rejected by the Cuthberts for being a girl instead of the requested boy. Her servitude as a nanny to twins gives her the strength and knowledge to prove herself to the town. Her imagination, once channelled into disciplined words, builds her career as a writer and earns her a scholarship to Oxford. But her imagination also erupts into dramatic flights of fancy. Caroline Toal (Cockfight) commits wholeheartedly to Anne's flights of fancy and her repeated pronouncements that she is in "the depths of despair," are hilarious and totally relatable. We all long, the Cuthberts and the book club members included, to give ourselves over to the emotional highs and lows of a life experienced to the fullest. Toal gives us permission, while also allowing us to enjoy the inherent comic excessiveness of it. 

The first act is utterly charming. The only reminder that Anne of Green Gables falls under the Schulich Children's Plays division of the festival is some audience participation in the imagining. Yes, it is cringy, but it is brief, and at a matinee containing more children it will score. Us adults in the audience were already happily exercising our imaginations in full participation. Even when the second act takes a conceptual leap and we see the stagehands, all but than the wildly entertaining (even the bad puns) Laboucane who is now firmly ensconced amongst the players, literally move the set and props into the present. Surprisingly it isn't that much of an adjustment and only momentarily disconcerting. The plot and themes of Anne of Green Gables prove enduring. The time period adjustment allows Sandler to explore themes that are only subtext in the original text and context. Martha Cuthbert, a very fine Sarah Dodd (Twelfth Night, Mustard) who has just the proper sense of dry humour and repressed outrage under her staid exterior, has a feminist speech full of fiery longing. There is LGBTQ representation. Red hair is no longer a reason for ostracization. And the talent show—Magic! Spoken word! Garage rock!—is a hilarious testament to the power of imagination.

While Toal's dramatics hold center stage with seemingly effortlessly energy, the rest of the cast is also stellar. Beaty's dithering and withering Rachel Lynde becomes an outrageously comic caring Karen. Tim Campbell's stoic and bemused Matthew Cuthbert gets his moment of lovely loquaciousness and is the anchor to Anne's fanciful melodrama. It's not a spoiler to reveal that he also creates a poignant void that brings the audience to tears. Bosom buddy Diana Berry, Julie Lumsden (The Diviners, Rockabye), is a perfect foil to Anne and the chemistry between the two is delightful as Anne finally has her emotional outpourings returned. Jennifer Villaverde (Animal Farm, James and the Giant Peach) is suitably snooty and covetous of Gilbert Blythe. She can't be blamed as Jordin Hall (Cymbeline, Richard III) is a swoon worthy Gilbert with the added bonus of evolving past his youthful toxic masculinity and futile preening. Helen Belay (Come Home - The Legend of Daddy Hall, King Lear) scores as a mean Josie Pye who becomes, what else?, an influencer and unlikely savior. The set by Joanna Yu moves from evocative and nostalgic to stolidly realistic, supporting the story and players with an abstract grounded grace. 

While it initially seemed curious that Sandler, who built her career with innumerable scrappy but brilliant productions, would be attracted to a text that is so classical, so revered in a frequently fusty fashion, it makes sense as soon as Beaty integrates the "turn off your cell phones" directive into a comic character-driven monologue that ropes in Laboucane. And the audience. The collective nature of theatre creation is explicitly referenced and linked to Anne's finding her place in the fabric of Avonlea. The amount of imagination required to present this Anne of Green Gables, and the ease with which it ignites the audience's imagination, also refracts through Anne's hyperactive ability to observe and extrapolate on what is around her. She dreams herself a family, a bosom buddy, a career, to be beautiful, and through sheer force of individuality, grit and belief in herself, makes it a reality. Not a bad over-riding metaphor for what is ostensibly a children's show. Don't underestimate the power of Anne, the skill of Sandler and fellow creatives, this Anne of Green Gables is an extraordinary, powerful production that should not be missed.