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Theatre Orangeville to premiere ‘Too Close to Home’

March 6, 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

“It’s always an honour and a thrill to be the premiere of a new play,” says David Nairn, Artistic Director of Theatre Orangeville. He was speaking this time of Alison Lawrence’s play, Too Close to Home, opening next Thursday, March 12, and running until March 29. 

“We define the play by producing it on the stage for the first time.”

First, a briefing of the plot and those actors bringing it to the stage: widow, Margaret, is retired satisfactorily in a small town, in what was the summer home to her and her late husband. It is conveniently close, but not too close, to her neighbour, Bruce, who is a friend and pleased to help her with repairs around her home All is calm and bright, when, banging into her life in the middle of the night, come her daughter Julie and grandson Connor.

The tale they drag in with them is that of Julie’s husband (Connor’s father) abandoning them for the sake of his girlfriend, who is pregnant. The girlfriend was a shock and, given her condition, a double shock. This night was the first they had heard of either.

Mary Pitt comes to us fresh from playing the role of a somewhat feisty Aunt March in Little Women, Theatre Orangeville’s Christmas play, to this play as Margaret, the much-tested mother.

Returning to Theatre Orangeville, after her adventures setting up and running, as Executive Director of the Norm Foster Theatre Festival in St. Catharines, is Emily Oriold, performing the role of the betrayed Julie. Ms. Oriold says she is pleased to be back to acting and back here, having been Theodora the Christmas Elf in Theatre Orangeville’s Everything I Love about Christmas.

Brian Young, real life husband to the playwright, comes to us for the first time as the neighbour, Bruce, who is engaged to build an accommodation for Connor in the attic of the house. And more.

Audiences have already seen the brilliant young actor, John Daniel, who gave a generously performed Puck in Theatre Orange-ville’s fabulous production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream, delivered as a unique one-weekend-only experience last August, in the Amphitheatre on Island Lake. He is playing the part of the teenager, Connor. That should be fun.

The Citizen sat down with the cast and director Nairn in the Green Room of the theatre’s rehearsal hall in the CLD building, immediately west of Orangeville, to talk about the play, its inspiration and its characters.

“I go to a lot of theatre,” said Alison Lawrence, “and it’s not very often that I see women of my age or older in the play.”

It was the author’s experience with her own elderly mother that caused her to consider the “sandwich generation” and how this might be explored in a play.

“What is it to be a family?” she proposed the question as the basis for her play.

“Julie and Connor arrive unannounced, [as a cry] for help from Margaret…” who has a life of her own and commitments to her community. “She is the only one who has a car – and a licence – and does a lot driving other people; she volunteers; she has a social life … she does everything.”

Brian Young explained the neighbour, Bruce, to us: “He has moved from Toronto, where he was an ad guy and had a partnership in an agency which ended. He retired to this small town and he is working on his novel.

“Once Julie and Connor come, he’s building a bedroom in the attic. They’re not here to stay but they’re staying long enough.”

David Nairn commented: “It’s a wonderful dynamic – everybody knows everybody’s business.”

Connor, as John Daniel explained, “is 16 years old. This whole thing of bringing him to his grandmother’s – he acts like it’s not a big problem. But he finds a friend in the handyman. He starts shrugging it all off – but his relationship with his father – there was a lack of presence…”

As for his mother, Julie, Emily Oriold told us, “She is at the edge of discovery. Her life has just been torn apart and she has a lot to think about. Not only for herself but for her son as well.”

Part of what is also “super cool [about this production],” as Mr. Nairn commented, “that son, played by John – he is joining this show – it’s so thrilling to see John, after starting with Young Company at the age of 10, now being able to perform in professional theatre-”

“I just had an audition at George Brown College,” John informed us.

“To know that investment,” said Mr. Nairn, “The investment is the community’s making.”

Come and see the play, the company invites you: “Bruce is now at a time of his life with time to reflect. Everybody has to reassess their lives.” 

John Daniel mentioned the experimental aspect of there being real food on the tables: “We’re trying to do things as real as possible.”

Ms. Lawrence added, “I was thinking of the saying, ‘The more specific you are, the more universal the writing is.”

The company assured us that this is a play told with characters people will relate to and a story you will love.

Too Close to Home opens at Theatre Orangeville, on Thursday, March 12, and runs through to March 29. Tickets as usual at the Box Office, 87 Broadway or the Information Centre on Buena Vista Drive at Highway  10; by telephone at 519-942-3423 and online at www.theatreorangeville.ca

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