On Saturday, May 28th we held our ‘Official Opening’ at TNL’s Gros Morne Theatre Festival 2011. A little earlier than most years but we wanted a special opening for the return of our production of “Tempting Providence” by Robert Chafe and directed by Jillian Keiley.
When I first came to TNL as Artistic Director in 2000 Gaylene Buckle talked enthusiastically about the possibility of creating a play about Nurse Myra Bennett of Daniel’s Harbour. She passed me Nurse Bennett’s auto-biography and I was immediately intrigued. We wanted to design a play that was very simple – in story and in set-up. A play that could easily play in our intimate Warehouse Theatre and tour – the dream was a play that we could put on the road through rural Newfoundland and Labrador that would play in schools, church halls and community halls. We would be able to do it with no lights, no sound scape – a set that should consist of four chairs, four actors and a table – that’s it. Jillian later added the table cloth. I decided to call up Robert Chafe, a young playwright based in St. John’s but who I met at CBC television writer’s workshop in Toronto. I knew his writing to be intimate and honest. Jillian was working closely with Robert and seemed to make sense to hire both at the same time so they could work out the story together. The rest of course, is history.
The play has since been performed over 400 times from the UK and Ireland, across Canada, to California and Australia. This coming year it will be performing in BC, Ontario and Nova Scotia. We felt it was time to bring it home for a full summer in Cow Head. We’re working hard to dovetail the summer performances with a finally realized rural Newfoundland and Labrador tour. We have pinned 84 communities and are currently working out the details of how to get the four actors, a stage manager, the four chairs and table (with table cloth) to each one of them. The logistics are a nightmare but we believe it’s well worth it – this is a story about rural Newfoundland and ultimately for a Newfoundland and Labrador audience.
The play features Didi Gillard-Rowlings who has performed in each and every one of the over four hundred performances of the play. And there’s a reason – she’s brilliant as Nurse Myra Bennett. Didi is from Englee on the Northern Peninsula and has been with TNL and the Gros Morne Theatre Festival from the beginning. To see her performance in this play is reason enough to make the trip to Cow Head. Playing across from Didi as her husband Angus is Darryl Hopkins – a solid and intense performance that I truly love to watch – especially as he and Didi create a complicated yet loving relationship between ‘nurse’ and husband. Robert Thorne, who’s been with the company since 1997, plays all other male characters in the piece showing off great versatility, sensitivity and humour. Playing all the other female roles is Willow Kean – this is Williow’s first production of “Tempting” and has fitted in perfectly, not only bringing humour to the roles but a certain honesty.
So that’s it for our first week at the Gros Morne Theatre Festival. Two plays, seven performances, three other plays in rehearsal with our next opening, “Sinking of the SS Ethie” by Shane Ellis Coates scheduled for Saturday, June 11th.
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