THE MIRA PLAYERS, CAPE BRETON, NOVA SCOTIA

THE MIRA PLAYERS
C 2007 JoJo

I’ve directed several plays, but the most memorable one for me, was the one I directed for “The Mira Players” in Marion Bridge, Cape Breton, when my husband and I lived there for 18 months. I turned up for their first meeting and introduced myself. We all sat down around a table, and that’s when I got a taste of the slow pace of life in Cape Breton. The group spent the next 45 minutes arguing among themselves, whether they’d gotten together for the first time the previous year, one week before we were meeting that night, or one week after! It seemed to be very important, and I sat there smiling, thinking how charming and delightful they all were.

Then a questionnaire was passed around on which we all wrote what we were interested in doing for the upcoming play, and what experience we’d previously had in community theatre. Well, I wrote down that I’d directed, as well as acted in numerous productions. To my astonishment, this was met with shouts of joy by the group, who declared right then and there, that I’d direct their next production. As director, I had a choice of the play I wanted, and I chose one by Neil Simon entitled “Fools,” a comedy and suitably proper for the Mira Players, seeing that all the proceeds from our play were to go to the United Church, in whose hall we rehearsed and performed.

I had a friend in Kanata Theatre who was a brilliant set designer, so I phoned and asked him to design a set for us, with two scene changes. He did an absolutely BRILLIANT design, where the set was on wheels, and all that was required was to turn both sides around, and presto, a doctor’s office, was transformed into a village street, complete with balcony!

“Fools” is a spoof about a mythical village somewhere in Russia called Kulyenchicov which is under a curse levied against it centuries ago, which makes all its residents absolute idiots. Just to give you an idea of how stupid they are, in one scene the village Doctor tells his wife “Shh, lower your voice.” She crouches and asks “How low do you want it?”

The most memorable scene was one where one of the women bursts onto the stage, dragging an upside down cow behind her! Yep, my husband created a full size, upside down cow out of wiring and papier mache! Being an engineer, he needed a model, so I bought a china cow, and he used a ruler to measure each part of her, and calibrate it to the proper full size ratio. Her eyes were ping pong balls, and I fashioned some luscious eyelashes with bristles, which I had my hairdresser curl for me with her curling iron (she was really intrigued by the whole thing). Hubby made the cow a black and white Holstein, and we had a daisy sticking out of her mouth! (He didn’t only make my upside down cow for me – he was also my sound technician! Needless to say, he did a fabulous job too!)

When that upside down cow was dragged onto the stage, I thought the audience were going to pee in their pants, they laughed so hard!

Now this play was a challenge for me, to put it mildly. The stage was small and there was no backstage whatsoever. Several of my characters had to exit say on stage left, and come back minutes later on stage right! With no backstage, the only way this could be achieved was to have them leave through the back side door (cleverly hidden from the audience by a rigged up black curtain) out into the open, run around the outside of the back of the hall and re-enter through the door on the opposite side of the hall (that also had a black curtain hiding it from view)! Now folks, this was winter, and on one night, there was a fair snow storm raging outside, so my actors had to run like mad through the snow, clad only in their stage costumes, freezing their butts off, and hopefully shake all the snow off themselves before bursting onto the stage for their next scene. Sometimes they didn’t quite get rid of all the snow, but nobody cared! The fact that they were panting from their energetic sprint didn’t detract from it either.

Cape Bretoners have a strong accent, and I found hearing them say their lines in this strong accent, absolutely hilarious! It really added to the charm of the play!

We were sold out for every performance and got standing ovations on every single night. There was such a demand for tickets that we were asked to put on additional performances, but it wasn’t possible because several of the actors were going away on holiday and besides, we were getting ready to leave Cape Breton to come back home.

This play is mentioned to this day in awe by the good people of Marion Bridge. All previous plays put on by the Mira Players, had had one set, consisting of one door, one window and was always a sitting room scene. They’d never seen a two set play in their lives, and everyone marvelled about how easy it was to change the scenes, thanks to my good stage designer friend in Kanata Theater! That upside down cow became a legend too!! I’d also been able to borrow many costumes from Kanata Theater, and so it was very colourful and everyone looked fabulous!

In several of the scenes, one of the men had to blow a shepherd’s horn. I couldn’t find one in Cape Breton for love or money, so I had some Brazilian friends ship me one from Brazil, made of cow’s horn. When it arrived, my eyes nearly popped out of my head – it was not your usual dinky small horn – it was HUGE! It measured five feet in length! My shepherd had to get the hang of blowing it, which he did with great gusto! It emitted one hell of a loud blast, let me tell you! It shook the rafters – the audience loved it and shrieked with delight every time he did it! He got such a big bang out of their reaction too, and when he lifted that whopping horn to his lips, he put everything he had into blowing it!!

There is one aspect of community theater that has always made my toes curl. I am referring to kissing scenes. In play after play, the leading actor and actress are supposed to be madly in love, and they either hug or give one another a quick peck on the lips – there’s about as much realism, passion and romance in the performance as watching grass grow. I was determined that would not happen in my play. I actually had a private rehearsal for the leading man and lady, and had them repeatedly practice kissing each other until I was satisfied they had gotten it right. They learned to stand close to each other (in the plays I’ve seen this has not been the case – the actors have kind of leaned over to each other) where to place their feet for the greatest effect and how long to make each kiss last so that it was real, without being over the top. I had them count in their heads how long it should last. It was all completely technical. I told them I expected them to perform this way at every rehearsal thereafter, and at the very next rehearsal, when they kissed each other the way I’d taught them, some of the cast snickered but my principles ignored them as ordered, and continued to kiss properly thereafter. By the time the actual production came about, my leading man and lady were so used to it that they did it spontaneously and naturally – much to the astonishment and delight of the audience who oohed and aahed about it. But it looked REAL and the way I’ve always imagined a kissing scene should look, but never did in all the many plays I’ve seen over the years.

What really charmed me about directing this play, was the boundless enthusiasm and energy all those involved put into it! They were a real joy to direct and I really enjoyed this wonderful experience!