Hockey Monologues
Popular local production set for repeat performances
Linda Smith didn’t know much about cold rinks or having a child in hockey when she attended “It’s Not Just a Game” – The Hockey Monologues back in January. But when she left the 16-scene play, she had a new appreciation for the sport, and enjoyed a few laughs along the way.
“Never did I imagine being so captivated and mesmerized by the professional quality of the script and the astounding superiority of the acting,” she wrote in a letter to the editor.
Smith, who lives in Halifax, went to watch the fundraiser for the Weeks Major Midget hockey team to support family members who were in the cast. She said the play “captured the vibrancy, spirit, joy, angst, heat and heart of what it is like for families to live inside the world of amateur hockey.”
The avid theatre goer said the production was one of the best hometown shows she’s ever attended, noting that script writer Colleen Hawley succeeded in capturing the soul of the sport of hockey “with elegance, sensitivity, passion, and most of all, with clever and entertaining humour.”
Reviews like Smith’s are one
of the reasons The Hockey Monologues is making a return to the stage next week.
The Hockey Monologues is a humorous look at various aspects of minor hockey such as selling 50/50 tickets, getting cut from a team and dealing with the smell of hockey gear.
Hawley, who also directed the production, said she had a lot of requests for a repeat performance. “We had a really good response from the first show – a lot of people couldn’t make it… and the actors wanted to do it again. It’s a great cause – raising money for local kids and a lot of fun – why not do it again?”
Hawley said she was pleasantly surprised by the reaction to the show. “I had hoped people would find it funny and would enjoy it.”
She said she thinks the show resonated with the audience because parents with children in hockey have experienced many of the situations she wrote about. “People found it funny and really related to what they’re seeing onstage.”
Hawley said the actors from Curtain Call Players, along with a few other actors – including several hockey players – were “sensational” and breathed life into the characters she created in ways that she didn’t envision.
“Never in the deepest trenches of my twisted imagination did I see these characters being so funny,” she said.
Fifteen of the 17 original cast members are reprising their roles in “It’s Not Just a Game” – The Hockey Monologues, which will hit the stage on March 2 at Glasgow Square Theatre. Another show will take place March 23 in Truro, where several of the Weeks Major Midgets players live.
Hawley, whose son Mason is a member of the Weeks team, has already started writing The Hockey Monologues – The Second Period, which will be staged as a fundraiser in the fall.