One Actor - Another Show

I have been hearing voices in my head recently. Not the kind that would see me in a straitjacket.  At least I hope not. These are the voices of some of the characters in my monologue “Fiddelity”. They want to be heard. And they waken me at night. In particular, Janet has been crying out to be heard. Hers has been the loudest of the voices. And then there is Janet’s mother. She will be called Meg. And Janet’s father, Rege, also begs for a voice. Whether these voices will be incorporated into the play or become an addendum, I do not yet know. The monologue still stands on its own and is obviously easier to produce that way. These added voices would require a larger cast and therefore be more difficult to produce. Perhaps I will simply add them to my podcast version of the play.  For now this is a work in progress.

Despite stating that "Fiddelity" is a fictional story, I have been asked many times how much of this story is true.  Real life can and often does trigger a fictional story. There may be hints of real people in this story of mine, but they are a mosaic of different people, some known, some imagined, some merely observed.  My parents had a very loving relationship and were great friends to one another; so this was not about them. My dad never spoke of the War or his career. But the “mom” in the story was in a small way my mother. She loved nursing, she often spoke of the War years fondly, had wanted to be a doctor and probably never wanted to be a mother of five boys. She did get pregnant and she did have  to come back to Canada from the field in North Africa in 1944 before the War had ended. And she didn't get a promotion she was up for. But she didn't lose the baby. It was my eldest brother.  My mom, who had been something of a "Tom Boy" in her teens, did t...

I am always nervous about putting myself "out there", whether it be on stage or simply in writing. Will the performance come off? How will it be received by an audience? This is especially so when one has written the work. And when one is the sole actor on stage for an hour or more, this is only accentuated.  When one sends out a script, one has similar worries.  It is like standing naked before a crowd of onlookers, not that I have ever done that. I was no less worried about my audio presentation of the play Fiddelity . I had not written it as an audio play. The intention had always been to perform it live, as a monologue.  I only sent the link to the Podcast of the play to sixty or seventy friends or acquaintances, people who had previously shown an interest in my theatrical dalliances. Although my partner did post a note about it on his Facebook page, his is not a widely read piece of social media. Nor is this blog of mine.  However, I have been deeply touched by ...

Given our uncertain times when live performances are not allowed, or encouraged, I decided to proceed with "Fiddelity" as an audio production. After all, we are living in war-like conditions to some degree and audio was the way of the world. But this proved challenging: M y limited laptop voice recorder is not exactly state of the art. Nor are my own recording skills. And this was my first venture into the world of Podcasts. I decided, to make it more interesting, to have different people do the voice of some of the characters the actor in a monologue would only tell you about. Three people have done four of these characters. So technically it is no longer a monologue. And of course, the different voices have all been recorded at different locations and on different devices. Juggling these different audio clips, attempting to insert them into the main recording, while trying to do my own lines with some feeling has been, to say the least, daunting.  I had hoped to add in some...

I have done some major re-writing of the "Fiddelity" script: ( Scripts )  Some of this I did while we were residing in Cuba this winter. Some of it I have done more recently as I have been working on learning the lines to this monologue at home here in Nova Scotia.  But plans to perform the play are now on hold because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting restrictions placed on all of us. Theatres and public spaces are closed. Gatherings of people are prohibited. However, this will not last. At least one hopes it will not.  In the meantime, I am thinking of doing a more polished video performance than the one I had hastily put together in my livingroom in December. But r ight now, learning the script is proving challenging enough. I will take it a step at a time and a day at a time. I do think this storyline would make a wonderful short film. But that is beyond my capability at present. My hope is to perform Fiddelity one way or another. And my aim is to ...

"Fiddelity" is a new monologue in eleven scenes (2019). It takes place over the character's seven decades and deals with the thwarted desire of a young child to play the fiddle, and the impact of the fiddle in question on the generations of this family. The script has received a favourable review from a literary critic; but another review found that although it was a "great story" it would not be a good play. Personally I believe that a monologue is a form of storytelling. A great story should be enough; but it has to be told well. This particular review was not based on a review of the script; but of an early and hastily put together video rehearsal of the play. Perhaps it was the performance they found lacking. Anyway, the review did encourage me to take a fresh look at the script and do some rewriting while away for the winter. The  early video rehearsal of scene 1 of this 11 scene monologue can be viewed on YouTube at  Fiddelity Sc. 1 . The play has yet ...

The play was very well received in Annapolis Royal. A snowy, wintery night might have dampened the audience attendance, but it didn't. A good house and an enthusiastic and attentive one was a delight to perform for.  As a playwright and as an actor one is always relieved that a new work is appreciated and enjoyed. And it is always good, and somewhat frightening, to put a work that has been long in gestation to the test. And now, for a while at least, it is put to bed.  Where the play goes from here is anybody's guess. I will submit it for the 2020 Liverpool (NS) International Theatre Festival; but there are no plans to produce it elsewhere right now. In the meantime, a new work is in its infancy. We shall see what becomes of it next.