I resisted the warbling call of theatre for several years. I had thought about writing plays for some time but I wasn’t particularly interested in acting, which is what was most in demand with the local club, Harbour Theatre. Directors were a dime a dozen in those days!
Friends, of course, played a big part in my indoctrination as I had many who were involved in the club which, then, was very active and held several shows annually. In particular, the McNish boys, Rod and Lyle, and Rich Jerstad prodded me frequently.
I finally relented when Rod McNish came to me saying he needed actors for opening skits for his 1997 one-act show, Life on Mars, which would also be going to the regional festival competition. The skit I was in, Coach Kingston Tells It Like It Is, was about 10 minutes and featured me as a hockey dad being told by his son’s coach that his son was too much of a wimp.
I recall, just before I went on stage, Rod telling me that once I was out there, I wouldn’t be able to wait to do it again. I scoffed … and I was wrong – so very wrong. Not only did I enjoy acting in a play, but I also wanted to write one. I warmed up with a skit.
One False Move was about three gangsters planning a bank robbery. One was the brains and leader, one was psychotic and eager to kill, and the other was an idiot. The title comes from the idiot, Lenny’s, inability to grasp the expression “one false move and you’re dead.”
“Well, if it’s a false move then that means they didn’t really move, did they?” Lenny asks, and it snowballs from there. The skit went through several revisions and was probably done at least a half dozen times, for birthday parties, rotary club, and special events.
With One False Move, the fuse had been lit. I proceeded to bang out a full-length play and a one-act in a year. I began writing the full-length play, Equator Woman, in the summer of 1998, and then cranked out the sci-fi comedy, Heads in ’99, for the first Udder Theatre Festival (Rupert’s fringe-style festival) before mounting Equator Woman for the fall of that year.
Art is a risk and not for the faint of heart. While I had confidence in Heads and the accompanying skit, Theremin’s Voice, which were directed by Rod McNish, I was anxious about Equator Woman as it was going to the Zone Drama Festival in Smithers and was debuting at Rupert’s Performing Arts Centre, aka the PAC (now the Lester Centre). It was also my first full-length and was more a drama than a comedy, so I once again called upon an experienced and good friend, Laura Chapin, to take the lead on the show (although I did co-direct to ensure my first baby was delivered the way I wanted it to be). Rehearsals went well and the set looked great but I was still very nervous come its debut.
Before I went to the theatre that night, I drove to the waterfront by Kwinitsa Station, where I always go in times of distress. With a sense of dread filling me, I felt like a fraud, naked, wondering: who do you think you are, that you can write a play just like that? Nobody is going to laugh. The premise is stupid. It is going to bomb. I looked out at the water and cried. Fuck. But there was no turning back, and I pulled out of the lot and went to the PAC.
To avoid scrutiny, I sat in the upper section of the theatre. There was a nice crowd, all in the main sections below. As the lights went down and the opening music came up, Laura reached over and squeezed my hand, and smiled. I exhaled. There is nothing I can do now. It is what it is.
The opening music came up as the lights went down and, in the darkness, there was a banging on a door. Then, the lights come up just after the back door of the barbershop has been opened by the irritated barber, who sees his best friend standing there. Scene One has begun.
I can’t recall the exact moment the best friend’s behavior gets the first laugh from the audience but I know that it was after that moment that I settled down. And, despite a gut-wrenching moment of searching for the next line, that seemed to last 10 minutes but was probably 20 seconds (still, a lifetime in theatre), it went well. It was one of the greatest nights of my life.
We would go on to win Best Direction, Best Set, two acting awards, and an award for original script at Festival but, somehow, not Best Production. Still, it was all I could hope for in my full-length debut.
I was a playwright. And there were a lot more stories to tell – by me, and by Ravi McTavish.
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