The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
For the approximately 200 people who braved the frigid weather to attend what has become the annual production of the Manitoba Theatre Centre, they found their trip very worthwhile. This year's production was entitled "Trying", written by Joanna McCelland Glass, and it was so well done that the actors had the audience in 'stitches' laughing most of the evening on Friday at the RH Channing Auditorium. The play was about an old 'crotchety' 81 year-old man named, Judge Biddle (played by David Fox of Toronto) and his latest secretary (Fox's wife in reality, Brooke Johnson, also from Toronto), who is just 25, much younger than her predecessors (who were many and who all quit, crying, and totally frustrated). This play is a comedy in which the judge tries to teach his new secretary how he wants things done. This isn't as easy as it may sound when, as he puts it, "my mind excuses itself without my permission and then comes around and thumbs its nose at me!" The year is 1967. The judge begins the scene with stating, "I am always ill, usually I'm ill horizontally but sometimes I'm ill vertically!" He suffers from arthritis as well as many other maladies. He tells the new secretary that a pre-requisite for this job is "spine". He would begin to explain what he expects from her, then make a terrible face and say, "my intestines are at war with the rest of me," and then he'd wander off talking about the war and how he sat in court for the trial of Goring, Hess, etc. The entire play consists of the interaction between the judge and his secretary, and it is anything but boring. The judge has so many great lines such as talking of the women's liberation movement and of them burning their "upper underwear." She comes back at him with lines like "lace up your skates and hit the ice, stay the course, and there is some (expletive) I won't eat!" Then he would come back at her with, "well it isn't that I'm indifferent, it's just that I am near the end of my life and the exit light is flashing and the door is ajar!" If you missed the performance it was too bad, because it was a very enjoyable evening. The MTC is presently on their annual tour of the province. There are seven members on tour. They are out for 24 road days doing a total of 16 performances. In talking to the Company Manager, Nan Carson, who has been with the troupe for four years, she stated that MTC has been doing this for 40 years! The next performance to watch for is the Prairie Theatre Exchange's MMMMuncsh will be in Flin Flon on Saturday, February 19 at the RH Channing Auditorium. Thanks to Jenni Donaghy of the Flin Flon Arts Council for arranging everything for me.
