Scary times on local stages
Zombies, ghosts and sweet transvestites at Cape Breton theatres
“Looking for a Men’s 11.5 W or Women’s 13.5 W sexy red heel ... Suggestions?” read a recent Facebook post from Cynthia Lahey that attracted some comments.
“Don’t you have some already?” was one comment.
Lahey, a talented musician and writer, wanted the slightly large-ish footwear for her latest stage project at the Savoy Theatre in Glace Bay — the much beloved and slightly infamous rock musical, “The Rocky Horror Show.” the same tunes as “Let’s Do The Time Warp Again” and “Damnit, Janet,” the stage version is its own beast.
Yes, there is still transsexual Dr. Frankenfurter terrorizing (and titillating) the hapless Brad and Janet, but the humour is a little rawer and stage conventions are mocked in the way the movie mocked ’50s and ’60s cheapo horror and science fiction flicks.
And the Glace Bay theatre’s website promises “interactive show paraphernalia will be sold on site (sorry no outside items brought into the theatre) for you to celebrate with Brad and Janet, give light when needed, and toast Frank.”
Performances (just in time for Halloween) are scheduled for Oct. 26, 8 p.m., Oct. 27, 11:55 p.m. (close to midnight-yea!), and Oct. 28, 2 p.m. Tickets are $39.50 and available from the Savoy box office.
And along with “Rocky Horror,” there are a couple of other spookily themed stage shows.
The Dead Puppets Society in partnership with the Cape Breton University Boardmore Theatre presents “The Night of the Living Dead,” adapted and directed from the classic horror chiller by James F.W. Thompson.
In the late 1960s, the dead rise to eat the living. A group of random survivors barricade themselves in a farm house desperately hoping to survive until help arrives.
The Dead Puppets have a strong track record of fun stage horror shows having produced “Frankenstein” (an amazing three actor adaptation), “Blackjack” (a gory spoof of 1980s slasher flicks), “Tales From the Bottom of the Well” (an annual anthology of horror and suspense plays by local writers) and that inexplicable voyage into terror and random tea parties, “Alice in Wonderland.”
Performances for “Night of the Living Dead” run from Oct. 23 to Oct. 27 at 7 p.m. and Oct. 28 at 2 p.m. Tickets are available from the Boardmore Playhouse box office.
Sydney’s Highland Arts Theatre offers a whole play filled with ghostly characters but the horror comes from the disruptions inflicted on a small Newfoundland fishing outport by government social engineering.
“West Moon,” by Al Pittman and directed by Sarah Blanchard, tells the many stories of the residents of a fishing village’s cemetery when they realize, on All-Souls night (two nights after Halloween), the entire town will be resettled leaving no one behind to tend their graves and sustain the memory of their lives.
One online review notes, “This is a love song for Newfoundland, its people, and its living, not just its ‘way of life’.” A second commentator observes, “The poignancy with which each of the characters review their own lives is wrenching, and the use of the Newfoundland dialect and storytelling bring tears of happiness and sadness both. I strongly recommend this play to anyone who enjoyed Thomas’s ‘Under Milk Wood’ and to anyone who enjoys Newfoundland and its history.”
“West Moon” is scheduled for six performances at the HAT from Oct. 24-28. Tickets are available from the HAT box office.
So, this Halloween, head for the outports in your sexy red heels and hope the zombies don’t get you.