Ringing bell again for fans of Wingfield series
With Wingfield Lost and Found, Walt Wingfield is back at the Globe Theatre starting this month in the seventh chapter of the popular series of Wingfield plays.
“It is generally regarded by the Wingfield fans as one of the best. It’s very, very funny. It’s got all the old gang, all the characters that people love to come back and reacquaint themselves with. And there are some new characters as well,” said Douglas Beattie, who has directed the Wingfield series from the beginning and is directing this show, too.
In Wingfield Lost and Found, the fourth production of the Globe’s current main stage season, Walt Wingfield, a big-city stockbroker-turned-small-town farmer, is trying to locate a new source of water for his farm. He finds himself dealing with “a high-tech cattle drive, a battle with yellow jackets, a feud with a redtailed hawk, an eccentric lineup of ‘water witches’ and a well driller who is only too happy to perforate the ground at $40 a foot,” according to promotional materials.
“It’s a hot summer, it’s a dry summer, and his well dries up, for no apparent reason. He’s not the only one who’s having trouble in that regard, so they need to find a new source, and that’s the search, the quest, that takes us all the way through the play. There are a few parallel requests about finding other things which are hard to find,” Beattie said.
Rod Beattie — Douglas’s brother — is the solo actor in the Wingfield series including Wingfield Lost and Found. Rod plays dozens of characters throughout the course of the play.
Wingfield Lost and Found opened in 2009 and has played in many theatres across Canada. The Globe is the only theatre in which it is performed in the round, which “always presents a new challenge,” Douglas Beattie said.
“It’ll ring the same bell again for the Wingfield fans for sure,” he said about Lost and Found. “There are lots of new things to get interested in. It’s a very topical theme, about a very precious commodity that we’re all realizing is a precious commodity. It’s an environmental comedy. It’s got a wonderful human story as well. And Rod does a terrific job in it. He’s in top form.”
Dan Needles is the playwright for Wingfield Lost and Found and the creator of the series. A novelization of all seven of the Wingfield plays was released in 2011.
All of the previous plays in the series have been put on at Globe Theatre, starting during the 1991-92 season with Letter From Wingfield Farm. The most recent was Wingfield’s Inferno, which the Globe put on during the 2008-09 season.
“It’s wonderful for us to be able to visit for the seventh time when we can do that in theatres across the country. The Globe has been a regular presenter of Wingfield for decades now and all the previous six plays have played there so we’re very, very glad to be welcomed back and very much looking forward to engaging with the Regina audience again,” Beattie said.