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CHRIS WYNESS of The News Perfect examples of what community theatre can be like at its best and at its worst were displayed Satur day on the final night of the Medicine Hat One Act Play Festival. However, the play that won the award for the best pro duction of the festival was The Interview (Fireball Theatre), staged Friday eve ning. The Interview will rep resent the city in the Provin cial One Act Play Festival to be held March 10 to 13 at the Medicine Hat College thea tre. The productions on Satur day went from bad to very good and if anything positive can be said about the open ing play. An Incident at the Standish Arms, by William Inge, it would be that it was mercifully short. Performed by Firehall Theatre and directed by Al Grey, the play deals with hy pocrisy and with one woman trying to come to terms with what she feels is right and wrong. The woman (Sheila Jacob- Verhegge), who has just had sex with a taxi driver (Lloyd Harty) she seduced into her apartment, is agitated be cause she is afraid of what the staff of the hotel apart ment may think if they see the man leaving her suite. As well, the woman is afraid her young daughter will arrive home from school and find the man in the apartment, forcing the moth er into an awkward position of having to explain his pres ence. The man is annoyed by the woman's attitude. After becoming extremely upset he breaks a vase and leaves the apartment, leav ing the woman alone to clean the mess and worry about what has happened. Eventually the daughter (Jacqueline Dress) arrives home with a request that the mother write a note to the teacher asking that she be allowed to move her seat away from a girl in class who always uses foul lan guage. The mother does not hesitate to agree to her daughter's wishes. The biggest problem with the production was the long, awkward moments between the dialogue where Jacob Verhegge and Harry, who were supposed to be showing signs of agitation, moved about the stage as if they were unsure of where they were supposed to be stand ing. This problem seemed to re sult from a lack of proper di rection, unlike the problems with the stilted and embar rassingly bad delivery of dia logue by all the actors, which was simply a case of poor acting Comic relief The second play was a bit of comic relief in more ways than one as Medicine Hat College's presentation of Anton Chekhov's The Bear proved to be the humorous highlight of the evening. The Bear, directed by Ri chard Collins, is a farce, or a “bit of vaudeville’ as Chek hov called it, and this pro duction included just enough elements of slapstick to make the play work proper ly. The play involves an arro gant, loud, obnoxious bear of a man (Dennis Baresco) who attempts to collect money from the widow (J. Allexis Karne) of the man who owed him a debt. The man needs the money immediately and over the course of the play becomes more and more irate with the woman, who in turn be comes equally upset with him because she needs sever al days to pay. In the end, after a pro longed argument between the two about the negative aspects of men’s and wo men's behavior in relation ships, they fall in love and the arguments are ended with a kiss. A lot of the dialogue is in the form of asides to the audience and the play worked well Saturday night because the audience res ponded to that dialogue with as much energy and enthu siasm as was generated by the actors on stage. In fact, the audience was treated to an extra set of laughs when one of the chairs unexpectedly col lapsed beneath Baresco and he picked himself up and carried on as if it were all part of the show. First class Pvt. Wars, written by James McLure and directed by Karen Cunningham, was the treat of the evening and, despite being a bit long, was a real joy to watch. Everything about the pro duction was first class and some of the acting, especial ly that of Ron Davis (who played Woodruff Gately) and Lee Durkin (who played Syl via), was as good as or bet ter than anything that could be seen on a professional sta ge. The play, which is a series of vignettes, is centred in the common room of an Ameri can hospital where three Vietnam war veterans meet to talk about themselves, their dreams, their fears and their ambitions. Even though the men are friends, they create conflicts that, as it turns out, are real ly a way for them to work out their personal problems. It is unfortunate only one play could be picked to rep resent Medicine Hat in the Provincial One Act Play Fes tival because Pvt. Wars was as deserving of the honor as any production could be Durkin tops However Rick McNair, the festival's adjudicator and actor-director for Theatre Calgary, awarded the Dra matic Achievement Award sponsored by Firehall Thea tre to Lee Durkin for his per formance in Pvt. Wars and also gave special mention to Ron Davis for the work he did in that play. As well, McNair awarded the Dramatic Achievement Award sponsored by Craven Hall Real Estate to Bob Warner for his role as Abra ham Moscowitz in The Inter view and gave special men tion to Dennis Baresco for his role as Smirnov in The Bear. The Stanley Cup (for most promising director) was awarded to Ruth Milne for Crucifixion in Moderne.
Newspaper Details
Medicine Hat News
Medicine Hat, Alberta, CA
Mon, Feb 21, 1983
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Kenneth H.
CA 18 Jul 2026
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