Wanda Carroll made a life by taking the road less gravelled

Wanda Carroll’s All Paths Lead to the Road Less Gravelled Credit: Hamilton Fringe Festival 2024

I really wish I had known Wanda Carroll when I was going through my divorce. In a heartbeat I would have hired her to be my therapist!

All Paths Lead to the Road Less Gravelled (All Paths) written and performed by Carroll, is well worth your time and the cost of admission. And, if you’re a woman who has had an abusive husband, or partner, then you will love this show!

I’m thinking that prompt will lead to a lot of sold out shows for Carroll.

All Paths is the third part of a trilogy that started with Carroll’s life growing up in Newfoundland with no toilet, no roads, no bus service and literally nothing to do.

The second part of this epic journey finds a hopeful Carroll moving to Halifax, Nova Scotia for university where she envisions graduating as a nurse, social worker or teacher – you know the standard pink collar jobs for women in the 1980s.

Carroll was also going to find her life partner at university. Someone she would date, then marry and live happily ever after. The second part of the trilogy ends with Carroll marrying her soul mate.

Fast forward to last night’s performance of All Paths, which opens with Carroll’s husband telling her that after 18 years of marriage he’s dumping her because, well, he never really loved her.

That’s not the worst of it because Carroll is living in rural Nova Scotia in a house literally right next door to her nightmare of a mother-in-law while he’s moved in with his new ready-made family.

And, just when you think things can’t get any worse, Carroll’s husband pocket dials her while making out with his new Missus.

So, Carroll does what any woman would do, she moves back to Toronto – oh, ya, she had been living in Toronto when her husband suddenly decided they should move back home to rural Nova Scotia to be closer to his mom.

After two months in Toronto, Carroll is back at her old waitressing job and online dating. But given her trusting nature, things don’t go well.

Fast forward a year and Carroll’s not only online dating again, she’s even hooking up. That’s how Carroll learns about dick pics and bad sex before realizing that she needs an emotional connection for things to be good in the bedroom.

Carroll eventually finds her partner – or, person as she likes to refer to him – and over the years they’ve settled into a comfortable co-existence.

Life is much better now that she’s not paying off the purchases her ex-husband made on her credit card and especially since she isn’t facing an old age that includes surviving on cat food.

All Paths is an entertaining one-woman show about something too many women have experienced – abusive men. Yet, Carroll gets her message across while making the audience laugh.

Yes, I did give Wanda a standing ovation because she deserved it – not only for creating a wonderfully engaging, audience participation show, but because it’s damn difficult to get up there and expose the side of life that most folks like to pretend doesn’t exist and that’s abusive husbands who, as we all know should remain, ‘he who should not be named’ – and Carroll never does name him.

Carroll’s one-woman show adds to the long Fringe history of incredible storytelling women who shared the darker side of relationships including The Cock Whisperer by Hamiltonian Collette Kendall, Open the Lace Curtains by Hamiltonian Marianne Daly and No Dick Pics, Please by Hamiltonian Robin Zilberg. All deserved standing ovations because they earned it.

Women of every age will love Carroll’s solo storytelling show – I know because I asked 30 somethings and older women as I left the show and they all said, Bravo!

If you still need convincing here’s the Chronicle Herald review, “Wanda Carroll follows in the line of great storytellers like Mary Walsh and Rick Mercer who can wring humour from the simplest of anecdotes.”

All Paths Lead to the Road Less Gravelled

At the Staircase Theatre, 27 Dundurn St. N.

General Admission: $14

Age Suitability: Mature (ages 18+)

Warnings: Sexual Content, Coarse Language

Genre: Storytelling/Solo Show

Run Time: 60 mins

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