The Last Wake being staged at the deCoste
After three sold-out summer shows in Antigonish, Keppoch The Last Wake is coming to Pictou’s deCoste Centre on Sunday.
The matinee performance follows on the heels of last year’s Keppoch Kitchen Party. Set on the mountain straddling the Pictou Antigonish County line, producer Duncan MacDonald calls the show a tribute to all once vibrant rural communities that once flourished but have since died out.
With a cast of 40 actors and musicians, it features stories, music, traditional songs and a few homemade ballads reflecting the Celtic heritage of many Nova Scotia communities. Presented by the Society for the Ships of 1801, it is more light-hearted than the society’s first three productions, The Ships of 1801, Strathglass Farewell and The Year of the Burning.
“With our first three shows we tried to portray the leaving of Scotland and the prospects of Nova Scotia,” said MacDonald. “In the process we tapped into some amazing talent and the performers had gelled so well we wanted to continue.”
Some of the performers are musically trained while others are not but they all share a willingness to improvise and an appreciation of wit and humour, he added.
In The Last Wake, the Scottish and Irish neighbours initially come together to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the MacLeans, an aged couple played by native Gaelic speaker Joe MacKinnon and Carol Anne MacKenzie whose character is sharp-tongued and combative. Their party goes haywire when a call comes in on the new party line, advising of the death of a neighbour. Knowing the stinginess of the old gentleman’s sister,
the neighbours decide to give him the sendoff he deserves. Fortunately, he was a fellow who loved a party.
Besides the neighbours the cast includes a hapless farmer turned moonshiner, a determined Mountie, a couple of stylish young ladies returning from the Boston States and a somber parish priest.
“Musically we perform some old standards that are well known to the audience and some new tunes that poke fun at the government or goings on in the community,” said MacDonald, adding most of the cast contribute tunes or songs.
The ceilidh tradition held on for a long time on the Keppoch which once had 12 well-known fiddlers among its 67 families, though no
one lives there today. True to the old tradition, the show features performers of all ages, including young fiddlers and dancers.
“As jobs became available in the mines and on the railway and in factories in the Boston States the young people left these communities and the old people eventually followed. We’re only left with songs and the stories and we hope we’re doing something to carry them on with these shows,” said MacDonald.
Tickets for the shows are available through the deCoste Centre in Pictou.
For more information, Facebook Ships of 1801 Concert, Duncan MacDonald, 902-863-1208, or Rosalie MacEachern, 902-7553138.