Skip to main content

The Lace - Ready to go

"The Lace" is now a monologue in ten scenes with a prologue and epilogue as well. The play originally written in 2018 was workshopped and revised in early 2019. It's first performance was at the Dickinson Island Summer Theaatre near Parry Sound in Ontario in August 2019. It was well received. As of September 2019, the play is scheduled for a benefit performance in Liverpool, Nova Scotia on October 27 and for another benefit performance in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia on November 8. Another performance has just been booked for October 24 in Bridgetown, Nova Scotia. 

As the venues tend to be very different, so must the staging adapt. For example, the prologue and epilogue were both originally written as audio visual pieces. However, many venues do not have that capability and so an alternative prologue and epilogue have been written to accommodate the more limited capabilities of those spaces. On large stages, the set for various scenes can be pre-set. Smaller spaces require a little more adaptation and audience imagination. To date I have performed my monologues in grand theatres, small theatres, warehouse spaces, community halls and churches. An audience of thirty was even treated to a performance in a home.


The play unfolds over an eight month period. The character is an ageing professional feeling threatened by younger employees. Although the character is meticulous and accomplished in his professional life, his personal life is essentially a mess. The play deals with office conflict, intergenerational conflict, ambition and relationships.

The play makes no judgment on the various characters that impact this play. Is anyone the good guy or the bad guy? Are things what they appear to be? What are the motives? This is all left to the audience's imagination.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

One's Company Now a Film

I am not a filmmaker. But Covid has forced me to become one, to a degree. I decided to turn this stage play into a one-hour film in the "talking head" genre. I have not decided what if anything I will do with this film other than make it available to my few fans on YouTube. I am not sure exactly how to categorize this film. At 61 minutes, it seems too long to classify as a "short", and too short to classify as a "feature". As was Fiddelity , the film is made with no budget and very basic equipment. I am, essentially a story teller in the old sense. It is the words and the way I use and express them that are intended to ignite the imagination of the audience, rather than reliance on pyro-technics and the like. I was particularly touched by this comment by one viewer: " I watched One’s Company last night and loved it.  A graceful insight into alone-ness.  Am I not being understood….or is it I who misunderstands?  Small worries looming large.  The growth...

"Deadly Sea Weed" Now Available

  BOOK RELEASE: Paul Rapsey’s fourth mystery novel, Deadly Sea Weed , has just been released. Like his first three novels, the story takes place in sleepy, small-town Nova Scotia. It is as much about the delightful characters in it as it is about the mystery that slowly unfolds. Although the tale involves some serious issues, it is written in the author’s easy conversational style and in a lighthearted manner. One can feel his love of Nova Scotia and its people. The book is available from Amazon Books as both a soft cover and as an e-book. However, because of Paul’s busy schedule, (he is starring in Eugene Ionesco’s “Exit the King”) the formal book launch in Nova Scotia will be on April 8, 2025 at the Mad Hatter Book Store in Annapolis Royal from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.   

The Play is the Thing

 I was cast as King Berenger in Ionesco's "Exit the King". When I first read this script through, I thought immediately that it was about the end of all things. The end of the world. My character was an everyman: the good, the bad and the ugly of humanity. And in a sense, I think, that is a correct assessment. But, even more, it is about our fear of death. And our unwillingness to accept its eventuality. Because we don’t come to terms with it, we often waste our lives. I think it was Mark Twain who wrote that “Youth is wasted on the young”. Sometimes I think life is wasted because we fail to recognize how short it will be. As my character says when informed early on in the play about his impending death, “But I know that. Of course I do. We all know it. Remind me when the time comes.” Yes. We do all know it somewhere in the recesses of our mind. But it stays there as our life unfolds. However later on, Berenger exclaims: “I fear that what is to end one day, is end...