‘Sugar Road’ Travels a Familiar Path
This year at Thousand Islands Playhouse, the Springer Theatre’s first show of the season is Sugar Road, written by Kristen Da Silva and directed by Sheila McCarthy. Like the formulaic Hallmark movies that are beloved around the holiday season, Sugar Road follows a structure that will be as familiar to most audiences as the back of their own hands: two sentimental protagonists, two comedic side characters, enough miscommunication to push the plot forward, and an eleventh hour revelation to tie it all together. I’ve never seen Sugar Road before, but at the same time, I’ve definitely seen Sugar Road show before.
The story centers on Hannah, played by Fiona Mongillo, the hardworking owner of her family’s amusement park, Sugar Road. Over a decade ago, Hannah shared a magical night with up-and-coming country music star Jesse Emberley, played by Will Carr, before his meteoric rise to fame swept him away. Hannah is often joined by her chatty friend Caroline (Debbie Collins) or the amusement park’s handy-man Ray (John Cleland) who morphs from loveable goofball to protective guardian over the course of the story. The play opens with news that after all these years, Jesse Emberly is returning to headline the country music festival at Sugar Road.
Collins absolutely stands out in her role as Caroline, infusing all her scenes with ample energy, volume, and comedy. Even the line-mishaps—of which there were few—are turned into some of the funniest moments on stage, including a rather hilarious admission that the blue jays love her blood just as much as the mosquitoes. Collins also proves to be proficient in physical comedy and her extended scene in a sleeping bag might be my favourite bit of the whole show.
In contrast, Hannah is kind and slightly reserved, played earnestly by Mongillo, who does a great job switching between her present-day pragmatic self and a Hannah who is 12 years younger and more hopeful. The character embodies the trope of the girl-next-door, and through the rose-tinted glasses through which we see her, she doesn’t seem to have any flaws aside from the thin walls around her heart—which are mainly there to provide friction for the sake of the plot. Her love interest, Jesse, is played by Carr with an awkward, well-meaning humanity that makes him feel genuine beneath the veneer of fame.
The set and costumes, both designed by Robin Usher, are simple and familiar. There is a ticket booth on one side, a tiny shack with a front porch on the other, and between them are two offset hedges serving as the main entrance for the players. The set is framed by homey trellises and your bog-standard painted trees up against a backdrop of green landscape and open blue sky. The set only changes once, when it is removed for a single scene before being slotted back into its same spot, and the fixedness of the stage brings to mind a 90s sitcom. I half expected Wilson from Home Improvement to poke half his face above the hedges to offer Hannah some advice.
The sound (designed by Richard Feren) and lights (designed by Louise Guinand) accompanying the set underscore the simplicity. During transitions there are small snippets of country music twang, and throughout the scenes you can hear the chirping of birds and singing of cicadas. The lights themselves are pragmatic, shifting only occasionally from lighting the full stage to a single spotlight, and employing an obvious shift of colour to signify when the show has traveled back in time.
Despite the predictability of it all, the actors imbue their lines with heart, even when the script itself does not quite flow naturally from one line into the next. The rather one dimensional story is also not helped by the jokes, whose punchlines you can see coming a mile away—but on opening night, the room was rolling with laughter so loud you often missed the start of the next line. It emphasizes something I suspected: I might not be the intended audience for Sugar Road. I tend to enjoy humour that races along so fast it’s hard to keep up, and stories that push back against convention. But as the laughter and applause at Saturday’s show suggests, my perspective is merely one opinion, and Sugar Road seems to have reached the right crowd. Despite not aligning with my preferences, I was glad to see so many people enjoying the play.
Sugar Road might not be reinventing the wheel, but there’s nothing wrong with the wheel. It rolls along a path that’s been well-traveled because people enjoy the road and its familiar scenery. That scenery can bring a wave of nostalgia, or provide a sense of comfort. Sometimes that familiarity is what people want from a trip to the theatre, and I can respect that, even if it’s not for me. There’s nothing wrong with the same old wheel, but there’s nothing interesting about it either.
‘Sugar Road’ is playing from May 22 to June 14, 2026 at Thousand Islands Playhouse’s Springer Theatre. To learn more about the play and to grab tickets, click here.
