Apr. 21, 2010 - Issue #757: Face First

Prevue

Ol’ foul mouth

Dry The Rain avoids elderly stereotypes

While in preparation for his newest play's premiere, local playwright Mark Stubbings got news that his very first play, called The Beaver Effect, was picked up by a directing student at the University of Fraser Valley.

"It's like my newest play and my first play are going up in the same week. Some student read my first crappy play in the Walterdale anthology and decided he wanted to produce it," Stubbings laughs.

A lot has changed since he wrote The Beaver Effect in 2002—the 35-year-old playwright has been racking up awards and accolades in the arts community, including a Sterling for his Fringe hit Redemption Thong.

Workshop West's production of Dry the Rain marks a departure for Stubbings—not from the coarse brand of humour he's come to be known for, but from the age of character he's used to writing. The play features a moody old git named Clayton (John Wright) and his doting wife (Patricia Casey), who have moved into a retirement home after Clayton breaks his hip.

"He's very, very unhappy there, so he takes it upon himself to find a way to escape from the retirement home. His wife is really trying to make the best of it, so she's not all that interested in going along with him."

Sure, that might sound like a normal premise for a play about elderly people, but Stubbings' goal was to present the characters as anything but ordinary.

"A friend of mine referred to this play as my rock 'n' roll seniors play," he says. "I was really getting sick of seeing steroetypes of seniors being portrayed in general in films and media, so my attempt was to write older characters that don't fall into certain sterotypes, like Grandpa handing out the Werthers and stuff like that."

As Clayton's character began to develop during the writing process, Stubbings wondered if people would buy a grandfather-type figure with such a nasty case of potty mouth.

"Clayton kind of swears a lot, and that's nothing new for the stuff that I write, but at first I was a little concerned about it," Stubbings says. "But when I was getting dramaturgical feedback about it, the majority of people would say, 'Well, you should heave heard my grandfather.'"

"It's not an issue play, but it does deal with some issues," says Stubbing. "There's obviously a foul language warning, but it's got a little bit of everything. It's kind of like Cocoon meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

As for his inspiration for the play, Stubbings fondly recalls the colourful conversations he had with his own grandmother.

"She had a great sense of humour—she wasn't at all what you would categorize as grandmotherly. She had a lot of energy. Some of my favourite times with her were when we would just talk about what was going on in the news that day. She would talk alot with me about music. I remember she hated Garth Brooks. She said, 'He's a pussy cowboy, give me Johnny Cash any day.'"

Now that's our kind of Grandma. V

Thu, Apr 22 – Sun, May 2 (7:30 pm)
Dry The Rain
Written by Mark Stubbings
Directed by Michael Clark
Starring John Wright, Patricia Casey, Frank Zotter
La Cité Francophone, (8627 - 91 St)
$15 – $25

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