Benefit for Champlain Elementary School Breakfast Program

News Release: Paul Rapsey, a resident of Granville Ferry, Nova Scotia, will be performing his latest play, “Desperately Seeking Samuel” as a Benefit for the Champlain Elementary School Breakfast and Lunch Program.

The play is a 90 minute dramatic monologue. Rapsey plays an eighty year old man who, having lost the memory of his life while hospitalized, slowly pieces it together while trapped in a small closet. In this production, he will also play another character who speaks the closing Epilogue.

The play might be considered an allegory about the loss and recovery of self-esteem and self-awareness. It is not a light comedy or bedroom farce. It has been described as a play “struggling in darkness and bathing in the light of discovery”.

Rapsey, who was professionally trained as an actor, has been performing monologues since his retirement in 2015 as a legal aid lawyer. He says he has undertaken this form of theatre because a monologue is something that can travel well and inexpensively. He has no budget. Moreover, it does not rely on other people’s busy schedules. His performances have raised money for various arts organizations, charities and non-profit organizations in both Ontario and Nova Scotia.

There will be one local performance at the Granville Ferry Community Hall, 5352 Granville Road, at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 22. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $15.00 and will be available at Bainton’s (Mad Hatter Bookstore), 213 St. George Street in Annapolis Royal from September 7.

Comments

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...

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...

The Hand of God

Now that I am finally settled in Nova Scotia, I have managed to find the time to work on learning another script. But this time I am learning it for myself as Samuel French has refused me, without giving a reason, a licence to perform it. I did not like this script at first, but the more I read it, the more I came to like it. As with many Alan Bennett works, the play has a dark undertone. It might be described as a black comedy. Most of Mr. Bennett's monologues have been written for women and have been performed by the grand dames of British theatre. This one is also written for a woman; but unlike some of the other monologues, the character could easily be a man. I have modified it very slightly so that I do it as a male character. The play was to be performed as a benefit for a local foodbank before Christmas. However, I did perform it for a few members of my family and a few friends at our home, which actually provided a perfect venue for this work. And people we...

One Actor - Another Show

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