Prepare yourself, find your seat and leave the kids at home - the latest production from Ham Sandwich may be fun, but it’s not for the whole family.
The show is an adaptation of the 1963 film Shock Corridor, directed and written by oft-controversial writer Sam Fuller. The play features Johnny Barrett, a journalist obsessed with the idea of achieving fame and glory, checking into an insane asylum in an attempt to find the truth behind an unsolved murder. The plan works too well for Barrett, through whom the show becomes a platform to discuss sexuality, discrimination and the nature of sanity itself.
Long-time Ham Sandwich player Alain Lachapelle plays Barrett, while Landice Yestrau will play Cathy, Barrett’s girlfriend and a burlesque performer. Other familiar faces, including Dianne Therien, Tom Heine, Joe Buie, Amanda Unrau and Tanisha Weseen are also a part of the cast, including Jacob Harvie, Tristan Barteski and Mike Spencer as asylum inhabitants.
Raphael Saray, perhaps best known for his day job as CFAR’s on-air “Hungarian Heartthrob”, serves as co-director of the production with his wife, Susan Gunn.
“I think it’s a little different from what people have been used to,” said Saray. The flyer for the show specifies it is for “mature audiences only”.
“We just got done with a big children’s show with the Chronicles of Narnia and a lot of very good, light comedy and I think this is something different. I think the performers are very excited to have something different to sink their teeth into and our technical staff are excited to build a unique world.”
Last year’s main production for Ham Sandwich, a stage show version of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, served as a primer for whether Flin Flon audiences were ready for darker fare from the drama troupe.
Saray said he feels audiences will take well to the darker play.
“It was something that I think the audience was ready for. We talk in meetings and things about trying to perhaps challenge our audience and we know the people we get are maybe older and intellectually curious folks. They read interesting books, they see interesting movies and I think they’re ready for something a little more peculiar,” he spoke.
Peculiar may be the perfect word to describe the play. The original film features moments some stage audiences may find racy - the flyer for the show advertises “erotic dementia” - many of which are preserved in this play.
“There’s a scene in the nymphomania ward of the asylum and apparently, some people have been cured and are now working as nurses and stagehands,” Saray said.
“There is some burlesque, there is an analysis of nymphomania through the art of dance.”
Saray and Gunn’s appointments are a departure for Ham Sandwich. While it is the first time either have directed a show with the troupe, both are experienced in the theatre. Each have degrees in theatre and have been involved in theatre since coming north. Gunn has acted in several productions and taught acting and drama classes in Flin Flon. Saray has written or directed a number of plays and musicals that have been performed at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, including Harper vs. Harper, Waiting for Trudeau, Ellie and David’s Parents and others. Both have been active in Flin Flon theatre productions.
The idea of Saray and Gunn running a show has been percolating for years and Saray has a history with the story. He said one of his former film professors at the University of Manitoba, George Toles, adapted the original Fuller film for stage nearly two decades ago with permission from Fuller’s family. The production was first performed on stage at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival in 2005.
When Saray and Gunn were first tapped to direct in Flin Flon, Shock Corridor came to mind immediately.
“Two years ago, they wanted me to direct a Ham Sandwich show and then I was always thinking about this one, in the back of my mind, to do. This one was really, really interesting and I thought we had the people here who could do it,” he said.
When asked what his goal for the show is, Saray, ever the showman, quipped, “Our goal is to have Harry Hobbs walk out.”
Shock Corridor will play at the R.H. Channing Auditorium March 13-14.
