A local theatre company is pulling a Broadway play out of its jeans.
Pocket Theatre Company is one of the first community drama groups in Canada to perform the comedy smash Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (VSMS).
It made its world premiere only four years ago, moved quickly to Broadway where the cast included Kristine Nielsen (she was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance), Billy Magnussen (he was a Tony nominee for his role), David Hyde Pierce (another Tony nomination) and Shalita Grant (yup, another Tony nominee) and Sigourney Weaver (the play was actually written specifically for her).
More than just a bunch of nominations, it won the Tony Award for Best Play on Broadway in 2013.
A handful of American cities got the rights to perform the show following its Broadway run, and only now are production licenses being granted to smaller theatre markets. Pocket Theatre was waiting in line when those doors opened.
Director Dominic Maguire said "it was a fortuitous accident" that started during one of the company's informal gatherings where local actors and comedians will get together in someone's living room and do a reading, out loud, of some scripts people have brought.
Maguire said "we had some other plays by Christopher Durang, he's really funny, and I spotted that he'd written something new. I looked into it and the first joke had me. I just loved it, so I brought it along to reading night, and the group went for it."
All they had to do was wait for the rights to be released.
The casting came next. The three main characters are siblings, and three other characters involve themselves in the plot. Katherine Trepanier, Jody Newman, Pierre Ducharme, Rayelle Stewart, Adam Harasimiuk and Teresa DeReis were cast. All of them are veterans of the local stage and well known to audiences.
Ducharme is a veteran of the local drama scene. He has been involved in some of the city's most acclaimed productions, with the community-based group Prince George Theatre Workshop, the professional Theatre North West, and other curtain calls as well.
He slowed that work down to raise a family and focus on his medical doctor profession, but VSMS was too tempting to remain off the boards.
"It's a beautiful story about these disconnected siblings who find a way, through the presentation of love objects, to find a way to connect," he said, and he also appreciated the playwrights obvious tips of the hat built into the VSMS storyline to master writer Anton Chekhov (the scribe of such giant scripts as The Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, etc.). Like Ducharme, Chekhov was a doctor in addition to his theatrical toils.
"Medicine is my lawful wife," Chekhov once said, "and literature is my mistress."
Ducharme has read a few Chekhov pages over the years and said "Chekhov is so very dark, but what Durang does is adapts those themes to modern day, and adds zany quirks to make it fun. I haven't done anything in about 10 years, so when I saw this script I knew it was time for me to return."
"I just love working with people I've known a long time, people I've been able to connect to through theatre, who have shown trust in me and I trust them. It makes it a pleasure to do hard work," said Stewart.
"There is a lot of talent in this cast, and our fun will become the audience's fun. There's a lot of heart in this production," said DeReis.
Macguire said VSMA is just what he needed, as a director and as an audience member - a good laugh.
"If you are true to the characters as real people, comedy comes naturally. This is not Three Stooges slapstick, it is funny at its human core," he said.
"Christopher Durang is hard to pinhole because he looks at the big emotional themes, but in a witty, off-beat, intelligent way. He definitely throws in the broader haw-haw comedy, but he is getting at something, he always keeps it honest. This play is about the role of family, shared history, sense of place and the way nostalgia works in our lives."
So how does a multi-million-dollar Broadway comedy get telescoped down to the size and scale of a makeshift theatre in northern Canada?
"You get creative with what you have," said Maguire.
"We got fortunate that we had Mark Johnson available for us. He is an industrial carpenter by trade and works a lot with Judy Russell on her productions. He was a big help. He made some flats for us, we stored them in a couple of people's garages, and this week they all got moved to Gerry Van Caeseele's place because he stepped up to paint them. That's one really good thing about Prince George: when you're doing something creative, other arts groups and helpful people will step in to offer support."
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a co-production of Pocket Theatre and Cinema CNC. It will be held at CNC's Stan Shaffer Theatre (Room 1-306) from February 25-27 and March 2-5. Each show starts at 8 p.m.
Tickets are available in advance at Books & Company and at the door. Prices are $18 regular, $15 students/seniors.
