Driftwood Players are to be congratulated for challenging themselves with their selection of two one-act dramas for their fall production.
The award-winning Haiku by Kathryn Snodgrass and Never Swim Alone by Canadian contemporary playwright Daniel MacIvor opened last Saturday at the Heritage Playhouse. The two plays are as alike as yin and yang: Haiku relates the hopes of a mother for her autistic daughter, Louise or Loulou, while battling the scepticism of Loulou's sister. It is full of compassion, rage and the promise of miracles, and is somehow very female.
The other play, Never Swim Alone, explores stereotypical male territory: men's clothes, their advice to one another, their sons, their colleagues, even the size of their manhood. Also, it does not shirk from examining their failures.
Yet the two one-act plays mirror each other in eerie ways. There is much repetitive dialogue in Haiku when Loulou parrots her mother's words, and it is taken to bizarre levels in the next play in which two men often deliver their lines simultaneously. Both plays are about expectations, fulfilled or not.
Audiences will probably prefer one play to the other, but in both cases, they will enjoy fine performances from the small cast. Haiku, directed by Ingrid Bilton, features the difficult role of an autistic young woman played proficiently by Anne-Marie Lindell. Her mother, performed by Niv Harris, is a poet in failing health who asks her other daughter Billie, (Laura Sigler, last seen in The Melville Boys) to acknowledge more possibilities in Loulou than are readily apparent. Are those qualities really there? Or is mother deluding herself?
Never Swim Alone is directed by Bob Hunt. The action is circular -what the audience sees on stage at the start of the play will inevitably come full circle. Two men square off in a competitive battle of words that is refereed by a beauty in a bathing suit performed with great charm by Dianna Barton (previously seen in Wonderville).
The two men are more alike than they are different - or are they one man? The confusion is sometimes irksome, sometimes comical. The role of man number one, Frank, is performed with great vigour by Richard Lund. Man number two, Bill, is performed by recent federal election challenger Bill Forst, (who continued to rehearse with Driftwood while running for MP). The two men joust to an intriguing climax that wild horses could not drag from me. You must attend and see for yourself.
The stage design by Susan Rule and Bob Hunt, though lean and simple, exactly suits the subject matter in both cases.
The two plays will run again this weekend, Nov. 7 and 8, at 8 p.m. with a matinée on Sunday at 2 p.m., then again Nov. 14 to 16. Tickets for $15 are available at Gaia's Fair Trade and Hallmark Cards in Gibsons, WindSong in Sechelt and MeloMania and the general store in Roberts Creek.
