How do two women put into words the feelings they are having for each other when neither has spoken these kind of words before? A Beautiful View is Canadian playwright Daniel MacIvor’s (Twitch City) quirky look at the language we use to label ourselves, and the relationships we have with one another.

"I think we have all been in front of somebody that we were captivated by but we didn’t know what the right thing to say was," says Director and Assistant Artistic Director for Sage Theatre Jason Mehmel. "[Audiences] will see themselves in it... [They will say] I have been there; I know what that’s like."

Mehmel has been working with Sage since 2006, but this will be his first time directing a show in the Vertigo Theatre studio space. He and Artistic Director Kelly Reay read the show and decided it was a good fit for him to take on.

"After I read it I said I loved it," he says. "It has been an interesting process."

Mehmel says one of the challenges in selecting the two actresses that compose the show’s cast was difficult – for the sheer volume of talent that came through the doors in auditions.

"The problem with casting this play was the problem of riches," he says. "There’s not a lot of opportunity for women in theatre to have starring roles where the play is just about them." In the end it was local thespians Monice Peter and Stacie Harrison that were selected to play the two contemporary female roles, the "two everywoman Canadians" as Reay deems them.

"This play... is, I think, specifically about language, and about the kind of things that we call ourselves – the labels we give each other –... interacting with the sort of vulnerability in calling yourself someone’s lover or someone’s partner versus their friend," Mehmel explains.

"[A Beautiful View] is quite a lot about the language of what we say when we don’t know what to say." The piece takes on those awkward pauses, those questioning glances, those intimacies between two people establishing whatever it is that is developing between them.

"They are basically grappling with what to call each other; what to call themselves.

They’re grappling with their feelings and how they are reacting to them, and feeling like they don’t know how to process them because they haven’t been given the tools to do that," Mehmel says. Societal expectations and pre-conceived norms are getting in the way. It is the characters’ quest to stop being tangled up in what ‘should be’ or what is expected and to just let their romance play out.

"[The play] has such a powerful natural voice, and these voices are trying to find the right thing to say to each other," Mehmel says.

These two women are trying to find the words that most truly and honestly describe their bond.

"[The actresses] have been both very open to vulnerability; to allow themselves to go to places that are not necessarily easy," Mehmel says. They ask questions, ensuring their dialogue comes from a grounded place. The director could not praise his cast enough.

Stacie Harrison also teaches at the Company of Rogues, and has been acting and directing in the city for years now. Monice Peter lives between Calgary and Vancouver doing film and theatre in both.

Though the publicity stills show the women holding ukuleles, this show is not a musical. "It’s not a play in which part of the show is a series of songs," says Mehmel, though the women do play the instruments. "Their love for music comes out through some of their scenes."

Asked what makes this play stand apart, Mehmel answers quickly: it is the language. "The writing is poetic," he says. "It... contains that MacIvor flavour."

He is speaking on the ‘Distinctly Canadian patterns in the speech’; a soft sarcasm that hides behind the words. The dialogue feels like everyday banter, yet there is a theatrical quality to it.

"It’s  A Beautiful View... it’s just a beautiful play."