HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1988-08-03, Page 22PAGE 22. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3. 1988
Entertainment
Theatre review
Dinsley - the Soap
good clean fun
The first day of school in the School on Wheels for northern children who have never been to school before
and Fred Sloman [played by John Koensgen left] nervously looks at a rifle Michael Cronyn as one of the
students brings with him in a scene from “Fires in the Night’’ at the Blyth Festival. Later the teacher will
use the rifle as part of a mathematics lesson. Other members of the class are [left to right] Ben Thomson,
Wendy Thompson, Therese Bressette, Jerrod Button, Jeremy Henry, Wesley Huizinga, Sarah Johnston,
Marie Cronyn and Earl Thomson. - photo by James Hockings.
Theatre review
Tires' tells of heroism
BY SUSAN WHITE
Fred Sloman, who started every
day in his school on wheels with
isolated northern kids by answer
ing their questions, was a special
teacher. A teacher who knew, long
before relevance and child-centred
learning were educational buzz
words, that children learn best
when lessons are connected to
their everyday lives.
DavidS. Craig ’s play Fires in the
Night which premiered at Blyth
Wednesday, succeeds wonder
fully in showing how children learn
when a committed teacher con
nects them with what they want to
know. Adults too. When the
Slomans spent one week out of five
on sidings in various Northern
Ontario communities, they were a
resource for adults as well: Craig’s
Fred and Cela Sloman use bingo to
help immigrant parents of Fred’s
daytime srudents learn English.
Craig says in the program notes
that he decided the play about the
Slomans should “explore how we
teach children, with children play
ing a central part in the action.’’
Director Jerry Franken has kids
marching up the aisles, singing,
reciting and signalling the scene
changes which move us through
the Slomans’ 40 years in their
school car.
The play’s nine or 10 young
actors show us exactly what the
school car meant to youngsters
who were too far beyond roads to be
in reach of a regular school. Jerrod
Button as bad boy Larry Novak and
Michael Cronyn as Daniel, the big
kid whobrings his .303 rifle on first
day of school are especially
memorable. Typically Sloman uses
the kids’ questions about the rifle
as a peg for an arithmetic lesson.
The kids, like all school kids,
occasionally sing off key and it’s a
tribute to the authentic mood of the
Blyth production that some of the
audience were relieved not to have
to sit through the Christmas
concert Sloman’s students so
carefully prepare for at the end of
the first act.
But if Fires in the Night is the
students’ play, it also belongs to
Sloman, the thoughtful, inspired
and inspirational teacher who
taught more than 1,000 kids
including his own in the school car.
John Koensgen plays Sloman as a
low-key, gentle man, but one
whose steel, fire and almost
charismatic vision is not far below
the surface.
In one of several moving scenes,
we share his idealist’s anguish as
Sloman wonders, in the light of an
RCMP investigation of naturalized
Italians during the Second World
War, if he’s oversold his students
on illusions about Canadian demo
cracy.
Carol Sinclair as Cela gives the
teacher’s wife a tentative, wistful,
willing-to-please quality. But
there’s steely determination here
too. Cela at first refuses to let her
children stay at millpost 138 as a
forest fire approaches. “We’ll be
at the hotel in Capreol,” she tells
Fred as she prepares to board the
train out. We’d like to know more
about Cela’s strength and about a
marriage that endured 40 years,
and five kids, in a rail car.
Though both theatrical Slomans
areintersting, the real star of Fires
in the Night, like the start of
Clinton’s Sloman Memorial Park,
is the school car itself. Sue LePage
and Kerry Hackett’s rivetting set
meets a big challenge. Always
centre stage, the revolving cross
sectioned rail car puts us squarely
in Northern Ontario. We feel the
magic of learning in Sloman’s
one-room school on wheels. We
share the cramped but always
decorous Sloman family life, and we
share the isolation of a rail siding at
mile 138 on the CNR line.
Actor Bill Dow is fine as Corrado
Romanelliwho provokes Sloman’s
crisis of conscience with his
accusation: “You teach dreams”.
Aidan Devine as Novak Senior and
Nancy Roberts as the older Lizbeth
Sloman also stand out in a large
cast. Lizbeth romances Gianni
Romanelli, who is played by
Andrew Wheeler. Wheeler is most
effective in one of his other roles as
Mr. Lloyd, the uptight school
inspector who bristles with con
tempt for Sloman’s adventure-fill
ed classroom. “The development
of the human mind is not fun, ” says
Lloyd.
The inspector leaves the school
car threatening to have Sloman
dismissed but the hint of conflict
with the then-Department of Edu
cation philosophy isn’t followed
up.
The real Sloman story involved
literally a cast of thousands. And
because playwright Craig chooses
to give us snapshots of four
different decades in school car
history at milepost 138, at times we
get a pageant rather than a drama.
But for anyone interested in
education, heroism and Ontario
history, that’s okay.
Craig has alluded to the difficul
ty of writing a play about living
people. The Sloman family was
closely involved in the production.
The real Cela Sloman was in the
front row on opening night and
school car memorabilia decorate
thetheatre’sdownstairs space.
But as Les Ste. Marie, president of
the board in charge of the restored
school caron wheels in Clinton,
said at a press conference before
the performance, the Sloman
family’s themes are commitment
and community.
Those are also the themes of
Fires in the Night. If you value
either, go see it, at Blyth Festival
until August 27.
Music exam
results
announced
The Royal Conservatory of
Music has released the results of
the music examinations held in
Blyth July 5.
Lori Millianpassed her grade
four history. Diane McLennaghan
obtained first class honours in
grade three harmony while Julia
Ann Trick and Laurie Dianne Little
passed.
In grade three history, Dianne
McLennaghan had first class
honours and Lorenda Ann Maas-
kant passed.
Obtaining first class honours in
grade two rudiments were Mark
Edward Walker, Melissa Logten-
berg, Karen Elizabeth Bylsma and
Keith Fulker while Alison Rose
Jongejan received honours.
In grade one rudiments Karin L.
Dykstra, Karen Anne Zondervan,
Patrician Helene Bos, Karen Lor
raine Clugston and Charlene Anita
Vandendool all received first class
honours.
In preliminary rudiments, An
gela Cindy Yoon and Heather Ann
Baan both received first class
honours.
BY TOBY RAINEY
The first two episodes of “Dins
ley - the Soap, not the Street”
played topacked houses at both
performances of each episode over
the weekend, with Episode 1 - the
Homecoming, taking place on
Friday and Episode 2 - the
Wedding, following on Saturday.
By all accounts, both have left an
enthusiastic audience clamoring
for more, and waiting with bated
breath for the concluding episodes
of the mini-series, which will play
later this month.
Written by everybody’s favour
ite comic playwright, Colleen
Curran, Dinsley - the Soap is the
1988 project of the Blyth Festival’s
Young Company, a group of 14
young people from the age of 12 up
who have taken advantage of the
Festival’s free program to learn
theatre craft, and at the same time
have a summer of enormous fun.
The youngsters not only get to act
in the hilarious.soap opera, but
"One in every
crowd"
Ontario Junior Citizen of the Year Awards
In every crowd there is a young person aged 6 to 18 years,
who is involved in worthwhile community service, overcoming
physical or psychological limitations, or has performed an act of
heroism. You can honour this young person, with the help of
Canadian Airlines International and the Ontario Community
Newspapers Association by nominating them for an Ontario Junior
Citizen of the Year Award.
Since 1981, the prestigious Ontario Junior Citizen of the Year
Awards Program has recognized the best in Ontario's youth.
Official nomination forms are available at the office of every
member Community Newspaper in Ontario, or the Ontario
Community Newspapers Association, P.O. Box 451, Oakville,
Ontario. L6J 5A8, phone 1-416-844-0184. Nominations are accepted
up to October 31st.
Every nominee receives a certificate and up to 12 individuals
and one group will be recipients of an award presented by the
Lieutenant Governor of Ontario.
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ONTARIO JUNIOR CITIZEN
OF THE
YEAR AWARDS
To nominate a young person in your community please contact
Your Junior Citizen Co-ordinator.
Jill Roulston - 523-4792 I
Or complete and mail this coupon to: '
The Citizen ‘
Box 429, Blyth, Ont. N0M1 HO
I wish to nominate _____----------------------------------------------------- J
as an Ontario Junior Citizen of the Year. '
Please send nomination form to: b
My Name: ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Address:_______________________________________________
Postal Code: ________________ Telephone:
Canadian Ontario „ community newspapers association
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have the chance to run their own
theatre company by serving as
stage technicians, set designers
and publicity directors while work-
ing with such professionals as
theatre instructor Mimi Mekler
and directors Ron Gabriel, Peter
Smith and Hilary Blackmore.
This writer, regretfully, was
only able to attend Episode 1 of the
series. But if it is any indication of
the humour and excellence of
Episode 2 and of Episodes 3 and 4
yet to come, it is well worth
spending $2 and braving the rather
close atmosphere of the Dinsley
Street Garage just to see these
budding young actors perform.
The convoluted plot, with more
twists and turns than one of the
famous Dinsley Worm Empor
ium’s famed Australian Night
Crawlers, not only produces a
laugh a minute, but leaves one on
the edge of one’s seat wondering
Continued on page 23