Mad Mabel
Got a Xmas card from Dad with $ and one from Brenda with 
this week, almost that time of year again. Mad Mabel put on her wonderful play about what Christmas and life in general is about, and how there is magic in everything, especially blue bottles and ketchup.
Not too many dry eyes in the audience at the ending, another swell performance by Jackie Minns and the new cast members that included Corbin Keep, Katalina Bernards, and Peter Montgomery’s daughter (can’t remember her name) playing Anna.
From the North Shore News’ Martin Millerchip:
‘The Mabel in question claims to be over 100 years old and spends her days recycling bottles, cardboard and anything useful from the local garbage dump. She also lives there, in a simple, self-made heaven with Raphaella, a cat who has forgotten how to love. Mabel’s closest friend in the real world is garbageman Dave who runs into her quite a lot in his line of work. Dave has a precocious 10-year-old daughter, Anna, whose spirit of Christmas runs only to a long list of presents she’s willing to trade for a $450 purple-and-gold hip-hop jacket from Gap.
Adults can probably figure out what’s coming once Anna runs into Mabel and, in a fit of temper, breaks her “magic†bottle. Sent to replace it, Anna destroys Mabel’s shelter at the dump. But David perseveres with Anna and so does self-sufficient Mabel – and the happy ending is never in doubt.
Despite the predictable outcome, the set-up is good enough that the pay-off carries emotional weight, helped by honest performances from the small cast.’
I think it’s not despite, but because of the predictable outcome of Anna finding out Christmas isn’t about clothing from the Gap, and gifts as simple as ketchup and blue bottles are around you everyday that the ending hits everyone so well.