“By The Dark of the Moon”, plays to appreciative Guysborough audience.

Posted on Jul 30 2007 in Feature Articles, Theatre

Mary-Colin Chisolm’s script By The Dark of the Moon, plays to appreciative Guysborough audience in the new Chedabucto Performance Centre as Mulgrave Road Theatre celebrates its 30^th Anniversary.

By Josh Measures and Elizabeth Measures 

 

Following three and a half years of writing and preparation, The Mulgrave Road Theatre can chalk By The Dark of The Moon up as a great success. The cast played to a packed house on Saturday, July 28th (the second night of three performances). The Mulgrave Road Theatre, which usually takes its plays on the road, decided to stay home this year and perform in Guysborough to celebrate the theatre’s 30 year anniversary.

And what a celebration it was!

The audience was treated to a majestic take on playwright Mary-Colin Chisolm’s piece. Most of Chisholm’s inspiration for the piece came from extensive interviews with local citizens, as well as some rumors, giving the play a grounded sense of authenticity. The events of the play unfold in a “minimusical” to portray the 1920’s juxtaposition of bootlegging and the Temperance Society movement. 

The first act opening with a mournful dirge chant by Isabelle, Andrea Lee Norwood, renders a sound of religious severity and fundamentalism against the background of the foghorn. This sets the mood for the Temperance social movement against the backdrop of local Canso rumrunners. Navigating the difficult waters from Canso to the fictitious Rum Rowe from where the liquor was delivered to Boston, the fishermen, in a bid to cash-in on the liberal drinking laws of the Boston States are lured into the trickery and deception of rumrunning, putting their lives at risk, not only at sea but also in the maze of cut throat dealing and from law enforcement. The rumrunners sieze an opportunity for an alternate income as the bizarre drinking laws of the 1920’s in the States make it legal to drink but not to produce liquor while in Canada it was legal to produce liquor but not to drink.   

The newly constructed Chedabucto Place Performance Centre was filled with wonderful lighting, dazzling songs, great acting and often, thunderous applause. Memorable were the songs, Living in the Boston States and My Perfect Poison. Several of the sea shanty songs appealed to the audience, perhaps reminiscent of songs heard as a child in Canso at the wharf. 

The grandiose story of rumrunning during prohibition was highlighted with both some extraordinarily charming and quirky moments. The eclectic array of characters from the play and Christian Murray’s deft character role switching was interpolated through the play with repetitve humour. 

As each actor played numerous roles it was through the inconspicuous scene changes as the Temperance Society ladies took up their roles in a mischievous adornment of full size puppetry costumes that both shook the house with laughter and kept the playful momentum rolling. The audience was quick to take up Murray’s direction of varying forms of transport whether by train or boat and his marvellous use of space on the stage from intimate gatherings of the fishermen on the stoop of the fish hut to the fleeting glimpses of framed moments, one such being the arrival of Isabelle in Boston, full of wonderment as she sees the high rise buildings of the city for the first time. 

The entire cast turned in stellar performances, with each actor playing numerous roles, but it was Deborah Allen in her role as Eustacia, who garnered the most laughs. Her portrayal of a caring, somewhat drunk adoptive mother with an odd fashion sense was frighteningly spot on and had the audience roaring with laughter. 

Chisholm says she is not sure yet whether the theatre will take the act on the road. But as the debut for the World premier of “By the Dark of the Moon,” in Guysborough closes it is with eager anticipation we await more news of this play and any possible production of the musical score. 

Photo top left:L-R: Kevin Curran, Karen Bassett, Danielle Pellerin, Rhys Bevan-John and Michael Fahey
Photo bottom:L-R: Deborah Allen as Eustacia Avery and Kevin Curran as Reverend Mick O’Shea

Photo Credit: Denyse Karn