Sink or Swim, Beverley Elliott’s one-woman play, Nov. 8-12 at Presentation House Theatre, 333 Chesterfield Ave., North Vancouver. Tickets: phtheatre.org/show/sink-or-swim, by phone at 604-990-3474 or in person at Presentation House Theatre.
Once Upon a Time actress Beverley Elliott believes in fairy tales, or at least a fairy godmother, because she was saved as a child.
All will be revealed in Elliott’s one-woman show, Sink or Swim, a poignant, playful and achingly relatable journey through her early years.
“It’s Little House on the Prairie meets Lord of the Flies,” explains Elliott, in summing up Sink or Swim.
The setting is Elliott’s childhood in rural Ontario, where five-year-old “Smelly Elliott” leaves the safety of the family farm and faces a daunting one-room schoolhouse, classroom bullies and the choppy waters of Boiler Beach.
First surprises, big adventures and betrayals pepper the play’s bumpy terrain. And Elliott promises the subject matter is relatable and will ignite and trigger memories for the audience.
“Most people had a hero at some point, mine is this wonderful bus driver,” she says. “Everybody had kind of a nasty teacher at some point.”
Memories from a lifetime ago are crystallized in Elliott’s mind. The smells and the images and the sounds and the names in that one-room schoolhouse come flooding back for her as Elliott, a masterful storyteller, projects those experiences and raw emotion onto the audience.
Despite a near-death experience in Boiler Beach – no spoiler alerts here – Elliott came out on the other side of her childhood unscathed. These days, the veteran stage, film and TV actress, who lives in the Deep Cove area, is enjoying her recurring role as Granny on the hit TV fantasy series Once Upon a Time.
God only knows how she landed the grandmother part, says Elliott, explaining how the casting directors had exhausted their efforts in trying to find the right actress to portray the character and were ready to head back to L.A. That is until a Vancouver casting company put up Elliott, an unlikely granny, for the part.
“She’s a lot younger,” says Elliott, relaying what the Once Upon a Time casting directors were told. “And they said, ‘Well, let’s see her.’”
While most people might be offended to pass for being older, Elliott was tickled pink when a few days later casting called and asked if she knew how to knit.
“And I went, “Uh, yes of course I know how to knit,” says Elliott. “And they said, ‘You’ve got the part.’”
Elliott hung up the phone and said: “Somebody teach me how to knit.”
Asked about why Once Upon a Time remains popular after seven seasons, Elliott offers an eloquent answer.
“It’s because we all grew up with fairy tales and we all continually want to believe in magic and happy endings,” she says.
But what sets Once Upon a Time apart from the traditional happily-ever-after narrative, says Elliott, is that the female characters are not damsels in distress or princesses looking for a handsome prince charming.
“They’re warriors, actually, and they’re very strong,” explains Elliott.
That message of female empowerment is important for young fans of Once Upon a Time who meet Elliott at conventions and tell her how the show has such a big impact on their lives.
In the beginning, Elliott says she was shocked by the fan convention craze and questioned why people would spend the money or even care to come. Elliott would become overwhelmed with emotion when learning why most came.
“Young girls that felt like they didn’t belong or they didn’t have any friends … they were just outcasts at school,” says Elliott, who has met fans from Kuwait, Switzerland, Germany, Brazil, Argentina – all over the world. “And people told me stories and they showed me scars on their arms and said through Once Upon a Time they found their people.”
Elliott is also a singer and songwriter, performing regularly in concert, at festivals and at benefits. Her songs soothe sick kids at children’s health care facilities, including Ronald McDonald House and Canuck Place. She describes her music as earthy, inspiring folk with a pop twist, which is what Sink or Swim audiences will hear in between Elliott’s captivating storytelling.
Elliott’s stage career, meanwhile, has taken her across Canada to the Centaur Theatre in Montreal, the Blyth Festival in Ontario, PTE in Winnipeg, the Globe Theatre in Regina, Western Canada Theatre Company in Kamloops, The Gateway Theatre in Richmond, and the Arts Club, Firehall and Touchstone Theatres in Vancouver.
Elliott had even made it in New York. She has only visited the Big Apple twice and last week she made her mark.
After snagging tickets to Hamilton, Elliott was high on life in the theatre mecca. She went to a story slam – a thespian lottery called The Moth, which is broadcast on public radio – and her name was pulled.
Elliott had to get up there and tell a true story about herself in 10 minutes. She went with what was seemingly an embarrassing tale of her being uncoordinated in a hot yoga class.
“And the yoga teacher just humiliated me, she just kept saying my name,” recalls Elliott. “Every move, she’d say: ‘OK everyone, deep breath in. Beverley, deep breath in, into the warrior pose. Beverley, the warrior pose.’”
Elliott suspects it’s because she was late for class that the yoga teacher was picking on her. But Elliott was centred and relaxed enough to realize that this person was being a bully.
But there’s a twist to this story, which Elliott tells so well.
“I end up running into the same woman at a party, later on and she doesn’t recognize me, but she’s completely bombed,” says Elliott.
Elliott could have exacted her revenge in that moment but instead took the high road and helped the inebriated yoga instructor into a cab.
Elliott obviously has a knack for regaling an audience – because she won first place in that New York story slam and will be going back to compete at the next level in the new year.
So what does Elliott believe is key to storytelling success?
“Details, a universal truth, beginning, middle and – by the end – you should be somehow changed as a human being,” says Elliott.
Smelly Elliott doesn’t exist anymore.
