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TO knocks it out of the park with Phantoms of the Opera House

November 5, 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

When they say, “The show must go on!” Theatre Orangeville isn’t kidding. 

From now until Nov. 11, you can still buy the link to their first online show of the 2020/2021 season, Phantoms of the Opera House. In honour of Halloween, this is a compilation of some of our theatre favourites, bringing their own take on the ghostly and the gruesome.

Theatre Orangeville’s approach this time, is to offer a variety show, an appealing mix of a reading, a short play, a silly, scary video, Leisa Way singing; story telling and Rod Beattie performing a ghost story from the Wingfield plays. All in all, it is so much fun.

David Nairn, in a well concealing ‘can you guess who this is’ costume plays an unidentified being, a sort of clown, with a good hat, a fine coat, a strange face, a very bad hair day and lots of humour to open the show beside his “ghost light,” a street lamp that guides us through the time. Let’s call him The Host. 

He thanks the sponsors and, acting as M.C. throughout, presents our first entertainment: Dufferin’s favourite playwright, Dan Needles, who began writing plays for this theatre just as it was opening, nearly 30 years ago.

Always understated but very funny, Mr. Needles read his ghost story, based, like all his stories, in the countryside.

“I live in a haunted house,” he begins about the home he bought, in which no one has lived for long. “It’s because of the ghost,” he was told.

Kristen Da Silva, who normally writes to make us laugh, took Halloween to heart this time. She penned a nine-minute, unsettling little tale, which she performs with Stephen Sparks, also frequently a purveyor of laughs to the main stage. 

However, this time round, he and Ms. Da Silva act out fear – at a social distance. That is how she wrote it: as a wealthy man and his housekeeper, holding back his terror of dying at dawn.

This is a pre-recorded video of the two of them on stage in the theatre. It is done in black and white, with great effect on the fears between them and his own stretched nerves, as the night goes on. The lighting is terrific, balancing the visual with the horror of a pending death– or is it just psychology? Can a person die of being afraid? At one and the same time, very interesting and very good tension.

Wayne Townsend, renowned local historian, brings a ghost story from the train rails of Orangeville. He offers the inexplicable – which remains as such, his side remarks amusing and hints that, even today, there can be strange things about, in the dark corners of town.

When Leisa Way comes on the stage, everyone is so happy. The Opera House Grand Piano, covered in candles, follows her on and she gives us a ghost song. Then, a draped monster joins her to first dance, then, – what’s he doing at that piano?! Don’t miss this. 

Wingfield Farm comes along from Dan Needles, a story told by the master craftsman on stage, Rod Beattie, who portrays all the characters, as a one man being many men and sometimes, ladies, like no one else. In this piece is another ghost story, in which Walt Wingfield, retired insurance person turned farmer, learns and doubts the tales told him by his farmer neighbours. Little is proven, as one might expect, except for the exceptional laughs to which the amazing Mr. Beattie treats us.

Adorable as ever, Mag Ruffman attends the festivities with her own special take on horror. A gruesome Mag spins a tale behind gray locks and cruel eyes; then a lost soul Mag wanders as if under a spell and is lost – or is she? Or are we all in this terrifying sea of life? Trust Ms. Ruffman to point it out to us – and well done. 

There is more. Buy the link and see it all.

The entire premise behind doing theatre this way: online and on video has been a massive and, no doubt, very interesting learning curve for the team at Theatre Orangeville. Never mind all that – these are heavy times but, as always, your own brilliant and very creative team at Theatre Orangeville have come up to the mark. Technical director and the main force behind the set designs, Becky Morris, once told us that however unusual her ideas are, her team work it through and make those ideas real.

So, with this odd, this Covid-burdened year, 2020, there was always going to be a way forward because Artistic Director, David Nairn, insists that theatre will happen in Orangeville and Dufferin and he has with him, the very gang of bright sparks to assure that can be. Their loyalty to we theatre goers has to be matched by our loyalty as patrons.

Not that many communities have a theatre, wherein the crew that runs it is so determined to keep it alive. This online theatre is a necessity: to keep theatre in your home when you cannot be at home in theatre. 

As Stephen Sparks said, “You can think, when you’re watching this at home, that others are too and that you are all one audience, enjoying the show, just as you do in the actual theatre. It’s nice to think of it that way.”

For more info, or to purchase a link for this show or upcoming online shows: there is a subscription price now. Go to www.theatreorangeville.ca. 


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