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Phone: 905-845-3824 (ext. 5559) Fax: 905-337-5567 e-m ail: rjerred@haltonsearch.com mmm Personality conflicts, faults surface in The Gin Game By Craig McBride SPECIA L T O T H E BEAVER The Oakville Players community theatre group is bringing a Pulitzerprize winning play to the stage this week. The Gin Game, written by D.L. Cobum. is a tragicomedy set in a retire ment home, and is based around two relatively new arrivals to the home, W eller (Vince Carlin) and Fonsia (Virginia McEwen) as they attempt to come to terms with their personal histo ries. Weller and Fonsia's friendship is catalysed by Fonsia's willingness to play gin rummy with Weller, and it is the card game that brings forth the per sonalities of these two intense charac ters. The Gin Game will be on stage at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts in Downtown O akville starting Thursday, but I had to travel to the out skirts of town to find the Old Palermo schoolhouse, a red brick, one-room affair that the group uses as their rehearsal space. After finding parking in the small, muddy lot. I walked into the crowded room where I met David Nash, the director of The Gin Game. A large man with a grey beard and thick glasses, Nash is making his direc torial debut with this play. He has a deep voice with a faded accent and slow, deliberate movements. " We have this romanticized notion of old people being sweet," Nash said of the two main characters, "but we find that they are a sum of their years and experiences." And those experiences haven't always been good or fair, and the years haven't always been generous. Fonsia and Weller have both seen bad days, and moving into a retirement home - "A ll your worldly possessions in a 10 foot square box," as Weller puts it - forces both to confront the lives that have led up to this time. "The characters are much older than we are," McEwen said, joking about the ages of Fonsia and Weller. Weller, on the other hand, is a foulmouthed. aggressive, and often incon siderate man. who cares only about playing, and winning, a game of gin rummy. But he never does win. Game after game, the quiet Fonsia who frowns on Weller's bad language, beats Weller at a game she only just learned. As the play goes on. and as Fonsia. becoming haughtier throughout, repeat edly beats Weller, the characters begin to resemble one another. Their respective faults and regrets, as well as their fears, quickly surface, thrusting the play forward and intensi fying the characters, personalities. Being a rehearsal, the play wasn't perfect. Lines were forgotten, and in one case, an entire hand of gin rummy was skipped, but the ease with which McEwen and Carlin returned to charac ter and to the lines of the play was remarkable, showing their deep experi ence. McEwen has been acting in commu nity theatre for 1 1 years, and Carlin has been doing it for 20. Both play their roles in The Gin Game with great care. M cEw en. especially, seems to embody her character, realizing that what is not done is often as strong a statement of character as what is done. Even sitting on the very edge of the taped off stage, I lost track of her: she could virtually disappear until being startled into motion by W eller's abrupt and strong voice. Nash, with less than a week before opening night, seemed happy with how the play was coming along, yet he's still worried. " I'm terrified," he said, half-jokingly. " In any art endeavour, when you unveil it you wonder, `did they like it?" ' After watching the rehearsal, I can say with confidence they will like it. I know I did. The Gin Game runs from Thursday, March 20 to Saturday, March 22, and Wednesday, March 26 to Saturday. March 29 at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts, 130 Navy Street. Tickets are $17; $8.50 for students and seniors on Wednesday, March 26. Chantal Ayotte · Oakville Beaver The Gin Game's Virginia Me Ewen (Fonsia) and Vince Carlin (Weller), introduced as opposites in the beginning of the play, begin to resemble one another by game's end. The Gin Game will be performed at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts from M arch 20 - 22, and March 26 - 29. " Make sure you put that in your arti cle," Carlin added, giving the first hint of the chemistry between the two actors. They have worked on several plays together in the past, but this is the first that relies so heavily on the two to carry the show. There are other actors in the production, but only as background. They sit lazily, often dozing off. watch ing television or simply staring off into space near the back of the scene. Though the two principal actors are familiar and comfortable with one another, they are still nervous. "Any good performer is nervous," Carlin said. " You should be keyed up, but you need to be able to control it." Nash hushed the 20-large cast and crew to begin the rehearsal, and I took a seat on a wobbly patio chair barely out side the " stage," marked off with mask ing tape on the paint-splattered, buckled floorboards of the schoolhouse. As the play begins, the chemistry between McEwen and Carlin becomes more apparent. There is an immediate tension when McEwen's Fonsia meets Carlin's Weller for the first time. The characters are introduced as opposites that are brought together over a card game. Fonsia is a woman intent on proving - mainly through lies - that she is a good lady, who has lived a vir tuous life. For her, initially, the card game is simply a way to make a friend. Have brunch with Canadian authors Sit down to brunch with celebrated Canadian authors. Austin Clarke. Ann Ireland and Susan Swan April 6 at The Oakville Club. As part of the Bookers Brunch series, the brunch will begin at 10:30 a.m. and w ill give residents the chance to meet with the authors, ask them questions and receive auto graphs. The Bookers Brunch has been operating for several years, and the informal atmosphere gives the brunch a very comfortable setting where people can sit back, enjoy good food and also gain insight on what it's like to be a published author. Austin Clarke is a very celebrated and critically acclaimed Canadian author, having won this year's Giller Prize, the country's most prestigious literary award for Canadian fiction, for this tenth novel The Polished Hoe (Thomas Allen Publishers). He has also been a recipient of the 1999 W.O. Mitchell Prize, awarded each year to a Canadian writer who has pro duced an outstanding body of work and served as a mentor for other writers. Ann Ireland is co-ordinator of the Creative Writing Program in Continuing Education at Ryerson University. She is the author of two previous novels: A Certain Mr. Takahashi, which won the 1985 Seal First Novel Award, was the finalist for the 1986 Books in Canada First Novel award, and was made into the feature film The Pianist. She was also the instructor which was shortlisted for the 1997 Trillium Book Award. Ann is past president of PEN Canada and lives in Toronto. Ireland has a B.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and is an active member of the Writers Union. She had been a jury judge for several awards including the Ontario Trillium Awards and the Rogers Communications/Writers Trust Fiction Prize. Susan Swan is a novelist and humanities professor at York University whose fiction has been published in six teen countries. Her last novel. The Wives o f Bath, was a finalist for the United Kingdom's Guardian Fiction Award and Ontario's Trillium Award. Lost and Delirious, a film based on The Wives o f Bath, starred Piper Parebo, Mishca Barton and Jessica Pare, and was released in 31 countries, including Canada and the United States. Lost and Delirious was featured as a Premier Selection at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival. Swan has given talks at Adelaide Literary Festival, Cheltenham Literary Festival, Stratford Celebrated W riter's Series, the University of Milan and at the University of Athens. What Casanova Told Me, Swan's new novel, w ill be published March 2004 in Canada by Knopf. She w ill be reading at the International Literature Festival of Berlin. September 2003. Tickets are $30 each and can be obtained at Bookers, 172 Lakeshore Rd. E ,, Oakville or by calling 905-8445501. The Oakville Club is located at 56 Water Street, 905845-0231. Madsaac plays Oakville Centre Sunday Cape Breton fiddler Ashley Maclsaac brings his unique brand of Celtic music to the Oakville Centre on Sunday. Following quarrels with his record compa nies and some rather well-published public outbursts, many people were under the false impression that Maclsaac's career had suf fered a few fatal hits. But despite the controversies, Maclsaac kept performing and recently played his 2,000 show. Maclsaac started performing 15 years ago at the age of 14 in local festivals, pubs, churches and community-hall dances. At 16, he recorded the mostly acoustic-based and traditional Close to The Floor album in 1992 and A Cape Breton Christmas in 1993. By 18. he had toured nationally with Toronto singer John McDermott, and The Chieftains. " I did 160 dates in four months," he recalled. " I was in school and I was playing two to four nights a week doing concerts, wakes and funerals." By the mid-90s Ashley had become a Canadian pop icon. He captivated audiences with his on-stage stamping, kilt, army boots and combat pants while playing songs that were gritty, dirty, and full of Gaelic, as well as an eclectic mix of contemporary punk, electronica, hip hop and grunge musical elements. " M y father once said to me, 'If you want to play the fiddle, get mad at it or don't play at all," ' said Maclsaac. " When I do my live show I present the image of an angry young man. It's angst or punk and that's what the Celts were, punks. But it's also about romancing because the Celts were also about that." In 1995 he released Hi, How are you today? which sold 50.000 copies in Canada in four weeks. However, while adjusting to his sudden fame, Maclsaac also earned his share of noto riety, from flashing the cameras in his kilt on the Late Night with Conun O Brien talk show to cutting short an American tour in 1997 due to exhaustion. In 1999, he faced further controversy when he departed from his record agency, then sign ing and again departing from an independent agency based in Toronto. But through these professional and person al bumps Maclsaac continued to focus on his gift - playing the fiddle. Though he continued to perform with friends like The Chieftains, he spent many months seriously thinking of what shape a new recording could take. The new album, self-titled, on Universal Classics Group's Decca Records is one of his most innovate creations. Working with top producers and execu- Cape Breton fiddler Ashley M aclsaac become a Canadian pop icon in the 90s and contin ues to thrill with his new self-titled album. tives like Roger Greenawalt, Kevin Millen and Rory Johnston, the album is a hybrid of the Celtic fiddler with a new twist of pop music. Maclsaac said it was this collaboration of ideas that made the album what it is. " I allowed the focus of this record to be dealt primarily by other people but I certainly had input. I told Kevin I wanted elements of what he'd done with U2 and Donal Lunny but 1didn't want the album to sound like an Irish recording. " I made it clear that when he arranged and mixed tunes he had to lake the Cape Breton vibe more than the Irish trills. That way. the Cape Breton tinge which is hard-edged, flavours the record," he said. Fans w ill see another side of Maclsaac that wasn't focused on in previous albums - his voice. The new album features him singing six tracks, some blues inspired and pop. " Hopefully, people w ill like my singing." he said. " I see this album as a great crossover record. It breaks ground for what my music is all about." Ashley M aclsaac w ill perform at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts on March 23 at 8 p.m. Tickets are now at a special rate - buy one ticket at regular price, $42.99. and get the second ticket free. For tickets call the box office at 905-8152021. The box office is open Monday to Saturday from noon - 5 p.m.