Justin Shaw in his one-man show, Off-Island Odyssey, at the Blyth Festival. Photo by Keith Tomasek

By Galen Simmons

What’s the difference between home and away?

It sounds like a simple question, but after seeing Justin Shaw’s Off-Island Odyssey at the Blyth Festival earlier this month and speaking with him about the show, I’m not convinced there is a simple answer.

For Shaw, who grew up on Prince Edward Island, there is a literal distinction. To leave home, you have to cross water. You have to make a conscious decision to leave the island and venture out into the wider world.

But you don’t need to grow up on an actual island to understand what that feels like.

That, I think, is what makes Off-Island Odyssey so relatable.

When I reviewed the show earlier this month, I wrote about how strongly Shaw’s stories reminded me of my own experiences leaving home, moving across the country and trying to find my place in communities where I knew almost no one. Shaw’s particular journey took him from P.E.I. to Montreal, Fort McMurray and Hamilton before eventually bringing him back home.

The places are different, but the experience of leaving somewhere familiar to discover who you are somewhere else is almost universal.

As Shaw explained when we spoke, Off-Island Odyssey isn’t really a story about Prince Edward Island.

“The idea of island to me is a state of mind,” he said.

Montreal can be an island. Fort McMurray can be an island. A small, rural Ontario community can be an island. We build communities and relationships around ourselves wherever we happen to land, and those become our islands.

And when we leave one, we cross a threshold.

Shaw hopes his stories remind audiences of their own roots and what it felt like when they first left home. For him, discovering what makes home special has less to do with the physical beauty of P.E.I. and more to do with “the people and the relationships and the things that were forged in a certain time or place.”

That emotional thread is what holds together what is otherwise a very funny show.

Off-Island Odyssey is a one-man production, meaning Shaw has nobody else onstage to play off, give him a breather or pick up the energy if it starts to dip. For roughly the entire show, it’s just him, his stories and the audience.

Having now spoken with Shaw about how he constructed the show, I have an even greater appreciation for how deliberate that performance is.

As he moves from place to place in his story, Shaw changes clothes, allowing each new location and experience to physically change the person we see onstage.

He also carefully considers where humour belongs.

There’s an important distinction, he told me, between humour and jokes.

A joke can be removed without necessarily changing the story. Humour, meanwhile, can serve as a “release valve” after Shaw has built tension, giving the audience a moment to laugh before continuing along with him.

But his biggest tool for keeping an audience engaged is what he calls “drive.”

“What is knowing the drive of the show?” Shaw said. “Everything I work on typically has kind of a question that I’m trying to answer throughout.”

Instead of simply telling audiences this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened, every experience needs to propel the story toward something. There needs to be a reason we are following him.

“I’m very mindful of what’s the drive, what’s the red thread,” he said. “How am I leading them?”

In Off-Island Odyssey, that red thread ultimately brings us back to home and away, and to the relationship between Shaw and his father that helped inspire the show in the first place.

When Shaw once asked his father where else he would live, his answer was simple.

“If you’re from the best place in the world, why would you want to leave?”

Maybe you have to leave to understand the answer.

If you haven’t seen Off-Island Odyssey yet, I highly recommend making the trip to Blyth before it closes. It’s hilarious, heartfelt and unlike anything else I’ve seen at the festival this season.

More importantly, I suspect you’ll recognize a little of your own journey in Shaw’s.

After all, everybody creates their own island. Sometimes you have to venture away from it to figure out what makes it home.

Off-Island Odyssey runs on the Blyth Festival’s Margaret Stephens Stage until Aug. 30. For tickets, visit blythfestival.com/off-island-odyssey/.

To join Shaw as he continues to bring his shows to other audiences across the country, including Vancouver Fringe Festival and the inaugural Yukon Fringe Festival, follow him on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok @justinshawmedy and visit his website, http://www.justinshawmedy.com.