Dearly departed: we are gathered here today to anticipate laughing at death, or at least near death, and getting a good snicker out of several other serious family problems.
It's what theatre does, and does well in the hands of experienced thespians who don't mind standing in the middle when the darker side of life and the lighter side of life bang into each other on a stage.
The large cast assembled under the Pocket Theatre Productions banner has been working together via various theatre organizations in the past - Excalibur, Enchainement, Theatre Workshop, Serious Moonlight, Street Spirits, etc. - but changes in the theatre landscape in recent years left a lot of them without a home for drama. Veteran community actor/directors Allison Haley and Dominic Maguire took matters into their own hands. The matters grew, and so did the number of hands.
"We were getting together to do play-reading nights in our homes and quickly found we couldn't contain everyone in the room we had," said Maguire. "Too many people were showing up. We knew then we had enough people with interest to do a full performance."
He had a play in his collection that had enough roles to engage a large number of these skilled amateurs. Haley offered to be producer, Corina Van Caeseele offered to be stage manager and Maguire offered to be director of Dearly Departed by David Bottrell and Jessie Jones, if there was enough appetite among the actors to launch a full show.
"Everybody responded to it really well," said Maguire. "We have been doing three rehearsals a week, but not everybody has to be there every time, because people have their family and work commitments. We've operated almost like a movie, in that way, where we will do Scene 4 this time, Scene 11 next time, Scene 2 the time after that. It's all very disjointed but we have done some great scene work that way and it will all get put together in the final stages of rehearsal."
The play pertains to a funeral for the patriarch of a dynamically dysfunctional family. There is some reference to incontinence, overindulgent lifestyle habits, sex and yams - all set in the American deep south. It's a little like Cat On A Hot Tin Roof with a few deeps breaths of nitrous oxide.
"The characters have such personal quirks and quirky ways of communicating, there is a lot of laughs for the audience as we see life through them," said Haley.
Some of the cast members depicting these colourful characters are well known to local audiences from high-profile past roles. Others are relatively new. The list includes Andrea Gobbi Mallete, Dwight Scott Wolfe, Krista Dunlop, Steph St. Laurent, Teresa DeReis, Katherine Dunlop Trepanier, Allan Dawson, Rayelle Stewart, Frank Caffrey, Lynne Brown, Virginia O'Dine, Jody Newman and Peter Maides.
Dearly Departed runs May 1 to 3 (8 p.m.) plus a Sunday matinee on May 4 (1 p.m.) in the movie/lecture theatre at CNC (Room 1-306). Tickets are $15, available in advance at Books and Company or Video Nexus.
