No rest for stage actors
May theatre shows bloom on Cape Breton stages
There is no down time in theatre in Cape Breton anymore and the productions mounted in the first two weeks of May is proof of that.
The month began with the evergreen, ever popular Mira Players presenting an uproarious, naughty comedy, “Sex, Please, We’re Sixty!”
The players have been on the go for three decades offering frothy comedies with casts drawn mostly from their Marion Bridge community as well as other performers from the local area. Most of their performers are of a, ahem, “mature” age and their director, Kelly Lynn Kirk, reads stacks of play scripts to find just the right material for her cast.
She hit the jackpot with this script. A chemist, in love with the fetching owner of the local bed and breakfast, invents “Venusia” which gives a boost to the libidos of menopausal women. The local lothario appropriates his own supply to aid in his conquest among the B’n’B’s female visitors. When the women find out, the tables are turned and the men pay a steep penance.
All of the cast under Kirk’s direction were high spirited and game for all of the fun. Harvey Pyke as “Bud ‘the Stud’ Davis,” stood out as the self-proclaimed irresistible ladies’ man who get a comeuppance worthy of his delusions.
Sydney’s Highland Arts Theatre began five summers ago but based on their production of “The Drowsy Chaperone,” which ran May 14 to May 21, they stand equal to many other older theatre companies.
“Chaperone” is the Canadiancreated spoof/homage to 1920s musicals that grew to be a Broadway smash. A depressed man sits in a chair listening a cast recording of a forgotten musical hoping it will cheer him up. He addresses the audience with tidbits about the cast and comments on the action as the show is recreated in his one room apartment.
Every member of the large cast, directed by Wesley Colford (who had a small part as well), gave big outsized performances capturing, without irony, the giddy, manic style of Twenties theatre. Stand-outs in the ensemble were Andrew Gouthro, catty, witty and heartbreaking as “The Man,” George MacKenzie as “Aldolpho,” a dim-witted Latin lover and Michelle Stephens as “The Chaperone,” a Broadway legend given to inspiring, if boozy anthems (a very “meta” highlight).
The Cape Breton High School Theatre Festival debuted at the Boardmore Playhouse over the Victoria Day Weekend. The first evening fascinated me and reports from friends who attended the other two evenings were equally impressed.
The Friday evening featured two plays from Glace Bay High School which both shone an honest light on the challenges facing youth in a lot of Cape Breton communities.
“We Leave” was a partly scripted, partly improvised story of two teen girls facing their life choices after high school. One girl has a stable, happy, supportive family while the other girl’s family has income and drug related issues which leaves college as a futile hope. For both girls, an education is the necessary ticket to leave an economically depressed Cape Breton.
In “Blueberry Pancakes,” written and directed by Maxwell Slade (who also had a small role), a teen is troubled by the death of his mother which sent his father into a tailspin of depression and unemployment and that the girl he is crushing on sees him as just another loser like his grungy best friends. A magic mirror gives him everything he wants but not what he needs.
I will never forget the image created by Slade of his hero trying to hold onto his lost mom through the frame of the mirror even as he picks a bad life over a false life.
Festival adjudicator Gary Walsh rightly pointed out these young theatre folk were taking big risks coming to the stage to pour their hearts out in front of an expectant audience. But they braved the risks and gave me, as an audience member, a new perspective on my home island and some theatrical surprises I will remember for a long time.
The organizers are planning a second festival next year, and I hope to see all of these year’s participants at different future “stages” of their theatrical careers.