It was a packed house for Elliot Lake Amateur Theatre Ensemble’s (ELATE) fall production, Friends & Allies, two one-act plays performed at the Elliot Lake Secondary School on Nov. 8.
Towpath by Robert Iles was directed by Fran Jensen, and The Allies are Coming by Peter Paylor was directed by Joel Haszard.
The first play, Towpath, shows us how four women of different circumstances may overcome their differences and prove helpful to one another.
Producer David Black said the original play was written for a British audience. “I wrote to the playwright and asked for permission to change some of the terms to make it more familiar with a Canadian audience.” Robert Iles approved.
Black also got special permission from the Belleville, Ont. playwright Peter Paylor to make script changes to The Allies are Coming. “He asked if we could change some parts of the play,” said Stage Manager Twyla Nicholson, “and Paylor actually rewrote some of the play to suit the changes we made.”
The Allies are Coming is a comedy with a message about gender identity issues.
The cast of Towpath, in order of appearance, was Ann Foy as Anne, Jane Michie as Chris, Kathy Mitchell as Pamela, and Janet Boehler as Jenny. All of the actors gave believable performances but Kathy Mitchell as a “hobo-type” Pamela was the most colourful character and got the most laughs.
The cast of The Allies are Coming, in order of appearance, was Astrid Turner as Ruth, Ruth MacDonald as Agnes, Jay Albert as Ashley, Doug Gwilt as Brian, and Debbie Landry as Kim. Both Astrid Turner and Ruth MacDonald played off each other well with humorous remarks. Jay Albert, a Grade 12 student at ELSS, made a good showing for his first time with ELATE. It was interesting seeing Doug Gwilt play a more serious and touching role than his “goofball” boyfriend in last spring’s Between Friends, and Debbie Landry performed well as “a character who identifies as non-gender.”
The set designers were successful with the difficult task of depicting an outdoor scene in Towpath with a blue stream running across the front of the stage. The cattails were particularly realistic. In The Allies are Coming, the three scenes were in a believable community centre, complete with stale doughnuts and bulletin board. The lighting was especially effective in the last scene of The Allies.
The costumes in Towpath did well to delineate the different types of characters: an active sportsperson, a lost soul, a homeless person and a lady of means. In The Allies are Coming, Doug Gwilt’s brown suit did make him look like a banker, and the colorful costumes of the characters returning from a Pride parade were believably splashy.
Both plays were comedies with lots of serious emotional moments. As Producer David Black said in his opening remarks, he hoped people would leave the theatre with lots to think about, and I believe he succeeded.
The performance for Nov. 9 has been sold out, but tickets are still available for Nov. 15 and 16 at $20 each, available at Alpine Flowers and Gifts in the Paris Plaza, Elliot Lake.