ON-THE-EDGE THEATRE DWELLS IN DARK CORNERS OF SOCIETY
Plays about cannibal serial killer and Winnipeg punks sure to catch attention of audiences
The 2018 Calgary alternative theatre scene is off to a promising start with The Confessions of Jeffrey Dahmer, a co-production from Theatre BSMT and Theatre Outre, and Theatre Junction’s Next Stage production of Rita Bozi’s My Fair Lady — The Punk Version.
Last season, Theatre BSMT and Theatre Outre’s The Curing Room played to turn-away crowds in both Calgary and Lethbridge, so it was only natural the companies would look for another project that fits their unique mandates.
“For Theatre Outre, the play needs to have queer content, and for Theatre BSMT, it needs to have elements of horror, so I started searching the internet to find new plays that marry the two genres,” says Jay Whitehead, artistic director of Lethbridge’s queer theatre company.
He stumbled on Josh Hitchens’ solo show The Confessions of Jeffrey Dahmer, which had been a hit in Philadelphia and at fringe festivals in the U.S.
With Theatre BSMT artistic director Ryan Reese enthusiastically on board, Whitehead immediately contacted Hitchens to secure the rights for the Canadian première of this stark drama.
“Every line in the play is something Dahmer said at some point. (He) was never shy about sharing his life and crimes. It was so terrifying and compelling to read, I could hardly wait to take it off the page,” says Whitehead, who will perform the play under Richie Wilcox’s direction.
My Friend Dahmer, the film that chronicles Dahmer’s final year of high school up to the point he picks up his first victim, was a huge hit on the 2017 festival circuit, including Calgary’s 2017 film festival.
“Hitchens’ play talks about Dahmer’s childhood and adolescence, as well, and then takes the audience right up to his capture in 1991. He came so close so many times during his killing spree to being stopped, but people refused to see the clues he was leaving.”
Whitehead admits getting into Dahmer’s head “has been daunting because he is so candid about the things he did. It was a real challenge for Richie and myself. We’ve had some pretty emotional rehearsals.”
It doesn’t surprise Whitehead that tickets for both the Calgary and Lethbridge engagements of The Confession of Jeffrey Dahmer are selling fast.
“There is quite a morbid curiosity about what brought him to do such horrific things and the audience gets to hear it in his own words.”
In Calgary, The Confession of Jeffrey Dahmer runs in the Birds & Stone Theatre, which is in the basement of the Unitarian Church at 1703 1st St. N.W. Feb. 20 and 22 at 10 p.m. and Feb. 21, 23 and 24 at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $20 general and $15 for students and seniors and can be reserved at theatrebsmt.ca.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS LADY IS NOT SO FAIR
Theatre Junction’s Next Stage program promotes local artists by providing rehearsal and performance space at Theatre Junction Grand as well as providing front-of-house services, marketing, box office and technical support at no charge.
The 2018 Next Stage program kicks off with Rita Bozi’s solo show My Fair Lady — The Punk Version Feb. 22-25 in Theatre Junction’s Studio Theatre.
The play is based on a short story Bozi wrote about her experiences as a young dancer in 1985. The short story came about when she attended a writers’ residency in Iceland in 2013, ostensibly to work on her novel When I Was Better. At the end of the residency, Bozi was asked to stage a couple of her short stories.
Her presentation of My Fair Lady — The Punk Version received such a glowing review she decided to continue to work on it as a stage play and presented a newer version in Vancouver in 2017 to equally enthusiastic praise. She wrote a third version, which will have its première through Next Stage.
This 90-minute version features 89 photographs of herself and others from when Bozi was a 19-year-old intern with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet — which formed the basis for the story of a young ballerina whose boyfriend makes a bet with a leader of the Winnipeg punk scene. They try to corrupt her innocence and teach her to become a jaded punk, thus the reference to the musical My Fair Lady and George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, which inspired it.
“Even if I’m hiding behind a false identity, as I am in this play, everything I write is semiautobiographical,” says Bozi, who admits her play “is even more relevant than when I originally wrote the short story.
“When I was developing the play further in 2016, the U.S. election turned increasingly nasty and sexist. At the same time, we had the Bill Cosby sexual assault trial and then six months ago, I was shocked to read of accusations of sexual misconduct against a former Royal Winnipeg Ballet instructor and a photographer with whom I had worked in 1985 when this story is set.
“The reason for telling this story has taken on a new urgency.”
Bozi’s character in the play travels to San Francisco and ends up staying in the gay district, so Bozi says the play also looks at the gay scene at that point in history.
For details and tickets, go to theatrejunction.com or productiveobsession.com.
There are just 60 seats available for each performance.