Theatre features obscure and emotional play

Walterdale Theatre opens its 56th season next Wednesday with the Edmonton premiere of a little known play And Then, the Lights Went Out.

It’s nail-biting time for director David Johnston, but playwright Andy Garland’s script is just what he’s attracted to – one loaded with action that wraps up into a neat package at the end.

“It’s such an elegant structure where there are huge amounts of emotion, jokes and special moments. As a director, it gives you so much room to play with,” said Johnston, a St. Albert Children’s Theatre alumnus.

Adapting concepts from film noir and pulp fiction, Garland creates the world of Thomas Levine (John Evans), an impoverished mystery writer trying to finish his seventh book in a series. Thomas’ mind has drawn a blank, the publisher is pushing his buttons to meet the deadline and the landlady demands a rent cheque.

The protagonist doesn’t have many friends and the only people that have incentive to keep his work alive are the book’s characters. Interestingly enough, they have more than a few doubts about how the plot is written.

Of the eight actors, five play major fictional characters. There’s the trench coat-wearing gumshoe Jim O’Reiley (Kyle Lahti), the beautiful dame Claire Valcourt (Erika Conway), the muscle Bruno Dawes (Chance Heck) and the mysterious mastermind Duke Morrison (Curtis Knecht). St. Albert’s Hayley Moorhouse plays Lucy DeBrie, the detective's sidekick who fumes at getting killed off in chapter three.

“Everyone starts out in boxes, but there’s a gritty, real feel and all the characters have an awareness of the world,” Johnston explained.

The surreal action springs from Thomas questioning the choices he’s made in life.

“His writing isn’t working. He has money problems and his responsibilities weigh heavily on his shoulders. He’s not making it and he’s wondering if it’s too late to make new choices. What do you do when all the choices you’ve made don’t work?”

To complete his novel, Thomas has sequestered himself in the apartment.

“But being stuck in the same four walls day-by-day wears you down. It sits on your shoulders and gets heavier by the day. The walls are pressing on him. His apartment is no longer a sanctuary, but a prison. He’s not at a place he wants to be.”

Set designer Brendan Boyd, founder of St. Albert’s Odd-Lot Theatre, has decorated the set mirroring Thomas’ state of mind.

“He’s stuffed the set with junk. It’s a rat trap on the eighth floor of a creaky Edmonton high rise.”

But although the plot suggests a certain serious heft, Garland has zapped a lot of humour into the script.

“It’s a ridiculously funny show and you will laugh until your sides fall out. We play with storytelling in an amusing and elegant way and the cast is rising to the challenge.”