ON STAGE, IN SUSPENSE
Hunger Room brings thrills
A suburban secondary school becomes the stalking ground for someone targeting female students in Staircase Theatre’s new production, The Hunger Room. As mysterious notes penned in blood are delivered to select female students, paranoia ensues, and everyone is under suspicion. From there, situations escalate until chaos and accusations start flying, as the mystery unfolds of trying to locate “the hunger room” mentioned in the macabre missives.
Local playwright Scott Button wrote the play in his final year of study for his BFA at the University of B.C. He was really excited about bringing the mystery esthetic of such hit shows as Stranger Things and True Detective to the live stage.
“I was taking part in the LEAP Playwrighting Intensive, which Shawn MacDonald co-ordinates and I was their first Level 3 participant,” says Button. “That was the first time someone had written a full-length play for the program and now it’s something that they do every year. Now, five years later, it’s being produced.”
While this may seem like a long time, it’s not unusual for a new work to languish. Theatre companies work years in advance to get productions scheduled, funded and so forth. Unless the new piece is a commission by the particular company, it isn’t all that common to take a risk on a new play. In fact, with the Hunger Room, there was a connection between the playwright and Staircase Theatre’s director, Stephen Heatley.
“Scott was actually a student of mine and when I went to see the staged reading of the play I was really impressed,” said Heatley. “I knew he was a good actor, but
not that he was such a compelling storyteller. This play is one of those where you keep thinking you know who the guilty party is and then have to keep revising your deductions until, by the end of the story, you realize you have tarred everyone as guilty at some point.”
Nothing is better than a whodunnit where discovering who did it doesn’t come easily. It’s a mark of good mystery and thriller writing and, at one time, was a key part of theatre entertainment. Heatley and a designer colleague set about coming up with a concept for the piece and did a few more well-received dramatic readings. However, the show languished after that, as all involved became busy with other projects.
But it wasn’t forgotten. “When I became department head, I was able to secure some research money from the university and decided that what I would like to spend it on was actually producing Scott’s play,” said Heatley. “Scott has been steadily working on the script for a few years as well.”
Celebrated dramaturgist Rachel Peake was brought in. According to Button, The Hunger Room came together the way he wanted it to with her expert guidance.
“It’s still this mystery that is there to engage people, but also has become much more character-driven and that has allowed
the bigger issues touched upon to become far more exposed and expanded,” said Button.
Both director and playwright admit that what’s described in The Hunger Room could actually be taken right out of the daily news. Sad as it may be, in this era of extreme social media bullying, nothing in the story sounds exaggerated. That just might be what makes the mystery so satisfying to Heatley and, hopefully, to audiences.
“It’s a psychological mystery story with these character reveals, which get you truly piqued as to what’s going on in the lives of the three 17-year-olds and two adult
characters,” said Heatley. “It’s a pretty claustrophobic world, which we’ve amplified by putting in an alley-stage setup, where there is even less privacy for actors and audience.”
Graduates from both UBC and Studio 58 in their early 20s were cast in the teenage roles, as the material was deemed a bit too intense to present to teen actors. Button would love to take on the challenge of working with actors in that age on a future project. One of the obvious reasons for casting adults was the need to work around a tight rehearsal schedule.