![\"Hereafter,](\"https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/edmontonjournal/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/hereafter-still2_304726385.jpg\" "\\"Hereafter,")
Hereafter
3 stars out of 5
Stage 5, Acacia Hall, 10433 83 Ave.
Death comes for us all, but that doesn’t mean we have to go gently into that dark hole in the ground.
The transition from the living to the afterlife is at the centre of Hereafter, the story of a gravedigger trying to make sense of the world while the world crashes down around him during a plague.
The gravedigger finds himself alone in the cemetery with no one to speak with, no one to love, no one to share observations and emotions with. A plague is ravaging the city and people are no longer brought to the cemetery so much as dumped down the hill, left to roll the rest of the way.
It’s a sad story about loneliness and the extent of the human spirit, of getting by while questioning the hand we’ve been dealt by fate.
Hereafter is a very traditional one-woman Fringe show, the old-school performance with everything from a bit of drama to a few laughs, a song, some crowd work, a costume change and some prose in verse. Unfortunately, it feels a bit scattered.
The song about the plague seems out of place alongside the prose, a weird segue into the absurd that segues a bit too far. The show is taking obvious cues from the gravedigger scene from Hamlet, a bit of levity in an otherwise heavy moment; it still feels like too much for a show that’s only an hour long.
Evelyn Gray’s performance as the gravedigger is absolutely brilliant, a masterclass in solo acting and clowning in a small theatre where she’s able to truly stretch her wings. It’s worth the ticket price to see her put on a truly magnificent performance.