Pine Tree Players challenge with a warm look at life

Posted By Hamish MacLean/hamish@canmoreleader.com

Auditions have begun for the Pine Tree Players’ fall production. And the group is still receiving feedback from the last Pine Tree production.

“Almost, Maine” bordered on surrealism and took a look at a number of forms of personal relationships tied together as lives in a town that never really made it to get official recognition.

While, the coincidentally geographically titled, “Toronto, Mississippi” looks at the dynamics in a family of sorts, in a period when non-traditional families were becoming more prevalent, this offering looks at the lives surrounding a teenager struggling towards self-sufficiency.

Shirley Tooke, the director, called the play, well-written, humourous and character driven.

“It has its serious side and it has its comic side,” she said. “It’s a drama, which life is.”

A long-term Banff resident, Tooke directed Ayn Rand’s “The Night of January 16th,” two years ago for the Pine Tree Players. She has a master of fine arts in directing from the University of Alberta, was a teacher of drama at several universities in Canada and taught at the Banff Centre for 10 years. She said she’s looking forward to filling the four roles that “Toronto, Mississippi” offers.

Playwright Joan MacLeod has in the past been a writer at the Banff Centre and, Tooke said, quite likely the seed for “Toronto, Mississippi” was germinated there.

MacLeod’s play, though, centres around a teenager, or young adult, with developmental issues. The play was written in 1987 and Tooke has decided to keep the play in that period and so the character of Jhana will be referred to as “moderately mentally handicapped.”

“She looks normal,” Tooke explained, “But then she does unusual things.”

The three other roles are supportive — and support plays a role in the play. Jhana’s father returns to the home in the play. King, an Elvis impersonator, left when Jhana was eight years old and believes he is helping when he continues to come back into their lives for a couple of weeks at a time, Tooke said. A graduate student, a poet named Bill, who boards in the home, also tries to help Jhanna but may or may not be helpful. And Jhanna’s mother, Maddie, a high school teacher, hopes her daughter will become self-sufficient.

Tooke said she’d like to have the play cast by Sunday. And is eager to start working with the actors on the play. She’s looking forward to working with a small cast. Aside from the first three scenes, Tooke said, the four characters spend most of their time together.