Sugar Road
Watermark Theatre, North Rustico
July 11, 2026

I’ve always been fascinated by midways, carnivals, sideshows, funhouses, amusement parks and such—so I’m often keen on stories in said settings, like Strangers on a Train (1951), Carnival of Souls (1962), 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), Zombieland (2009)… heck, even Big Top Scooby-Doo! (2012) is a longtime, much-loved resident of the McQuaid household’s DVD rack. Suffice it to say I’m a sucker for the circus. 

I’m also a fan of Canadian playwright Kristen Da Silva, whose wittily melancholy romantic dramedy Beyond the Sea (2021) wowed me in its sublime 2022 run at the historic Victoria Playhouse. So, when I heard Da Silva’s play Sugar Road (2017) was coming to a similarly great PEI venue (the Watermark) and that its story is set in an amusement park, it felt a bit like the fates were tantalizing me in a very targeted way. “Go and see this,” whispers The Universe. “You’ll like it.” 

And yep, I did like it. Good job, Universe. 

Did I like it as much as Beyond the Sea? Well, no, not quite. That play hit me where I lived and then some, right in the brain and the heart and the gut all at the same time. Sugar Road puts more of its eggs in the heart basket, warm and funny and unabashedly romantic. It’s not as daring or deeply moving as its 2021 counterpart, but it doesn’t really need to be when it’s serving up heaping scoops of quirky smalltown charm, juicy laugh lines and long-brewing romance like a lost Canadian cousin of Gilmore Girls. It’s carnival comfort food with a side of country music. 

Said music mostly comes from country icon Jesse Emberley (portrayed here with aw-shucks aplomb by Dustin Freeland), who played a gig at the Sugar Road amusement park in Elmvale, Ontario early in his career, a gig that included a romance with local gal Hannah Taylor (a charming Kait Post); 12 years later, superstar Jesse comes back to Sugar Road, but Hannah never left. Having inherited the park from her late mother, Hannah keeps the aging midway running with support from her friend, loquaciously lonely farmer Caroline Dawn (Leni Parker), Jesse Emberley’s biggest fan; and Sugar Road’s longtime handyman, salty softie Ray Bishop (Paul Van Dyck). 

This is a play with music, not a musical. There is live singing, yes, featuring original music written by Ian Blackwood (with lyrics by him and Da Silva), but Sugar Road is largely spoken rather than sung. The music is a nice extra, but it doesn’t run the show. 

Rebecca Parent smoothly directs this production—flashbacks aplenty, for instance, are handled with quick and clear transitions—featuring set/costume designs by Sabrina Balliana, lighting design by Kahentanó:ron Brianna Montour and sound design by Pat Caron. Balliana’s detailed, lived-in set suggests the unglamorous business end of a carnival setting with its utilitarian shack and ticket booth, while the attractively lit-up “Sugar Road” marquee above the booth offers a hint of the park’s low-rent razzle-dazzle. 

Da Silva’s plays speak knowingly and affectionately about small Canadian towns; Sugar Road is no exception, also conjuring the modest marvels a fairground can bring to such communities (and transporting me back to my summers on the Dundas Plowing Match midway). Da Silva conveys the inherent romance attached to these places, a mystique above and beyond any romance of the smooching variety – though the play has plenty of that twitterpated version of romance, too. 

Like fellow 2026 Watermark show Relatively Speaking (1965), Sugar Road is very funny; it’s less brisk and more predictable than the 1965 play, but much more endearingly humane—and the two productions share the same crackerjack cast. That gives multi-play audiences the fun of seeing these actors’ range—with Van Dyck, for instance, morphing from a pompous British cad in one show to a rough-and-tumble carny with a heart of gold in the next; but where Van Dyck often steals the show in Relatively Speaking, Parker might be Sugar Road’s crowd-pleasing standout via deft line deliveries and potent physical comedy as Hannah’s oddball pal Caroline. 

Can Jesse and Hannah rekindle their old flame? You’ll have to buy a ticket to find out, but there’s a lot to love in this amiable romantic comedy’s dialogue, characters and setting regardless, though I might be an easy mark for this stuff. As Fred Jones says in a certain Scooby-Doo movie, “Did I mention I love the circus?”