The Citizen, 2004-06-16, Page 9Congratulations on 30 seasons
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BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 2004. PAGE 9.
Amos here to mark another anniversary
JANET AMOS
Happy to be home
By Sarah Mann
Citizen staff
Janet Amos is no stranger to the
Blyth Festival - especially during
anniversary seasons.
Amos was at the Festival as artistic
director for the 10th and 20th
anniversaries and now as an actor for
the 30th season appearing in Cricket
and Claudette, and Heatwave.
In Cricket and Claudette, a play
written by Amos's husband Ted
Johns, Amos plays the character of
Bridey - the manager of a local
dump.
Amos describes Bridey as a "big,
gruff woman with a big heart."
Bridey has gotten into some trouble
though. Amos says, because
somebody has tried to steal a piano
from the dump and while the man
was attempting this, he had a heart
attack and died. Bridey has turned
over the job at the dump to a friend,
Speed, "who is sort, of her boyfriend
but we're not really sure at the
beginning."
The whole play centres around new
dump regulations but Amos says the
play isn't all about-politics.
"It's kind of an imaginative play;
Memories
it's only partly about politics. It's
about character."
Johns started to work on this play
after his visits to the dump led him to
talking with the people who work
there.
"He takes stuff out to the dump all
the time and he's always interested in
the world around him. He's very
interested in the people around here
so the characters are all inspirations
from various people he's met. Then
the ideas came from the guys at the
dump so it was really their idea - they
thought it would be a good play."
Although Amos isn't in rehearsals
for Cricket and Claudette yet she has
begun preparing for her role.
"I went to an auction in Lucknow,"
she says. "There were all kinds of
people there and I saw about three
people who could have been Bridey.
I was just amazed. So I listen to how
people speak and watch how they
move and how they express their
emotions and hide their emotions.
[Bridey] is a person who hides her
emotions but she has all this feeling
inside of her. She's almost a kind of
masculine character because a lot of
men do that. I try to imagine what
she's holding in and how she holds it
in and the ways in which it cracks out
and makes her cry. It's going to be a
demanding and interesting journey.
In contrast to the role of Bridey,
Amos will also be on stage this
season as a French woman named
Giselle in Heatwave.
Giselle's husband has died the
previous year and "she's at the
cottage with this guy she has been
working with and you discover
almost immediately that she's in the
middle of an affair with this 20-year-
old."
Giselle is worried about her age
and keeps changing her hair colour
throughout the show.
"She has yellow hair when we start
and then she has red hair and then she
has her own colour of hair."
But her hair colour is really the
least of her worries. She also has two
children, twins in their 30s, who are
coming to visit for the weekend.
"Everyone in the play has secrets,"
Amos says with a smile. "She doesn't
want them to find out about the
young guy because her husband only
died in the last year and she thinks it
will look odd. The other
complication is her next door
neighbour, an older man, who has
always been interested in her and she
doesn't tell him her husband is dead."
Sounds a bit like a soap opera... but
there's more.
"Her daughter and son have kind of
stopped their lives because of their
father, whom they loved, but who
disapproved of them. [The daughter]
falls in love with older guys and the
son is gay. So he arrives and there's
this young, beautiful guy there,
running around, swimming and
there's nowhere for him to sleep
because he can't sleep with Giselle so
he and the son end up in the same
bed. And then the daughter falls for
the neighbour. It's sort of a farce."
Amos considers herself very lucky
to have two roles that contrast each
other the way they do.
"I have these two very beautiful
roles, so that's why I'm so happy,"
she says beaming.
But the plan for Amos wasn't
always to act in these two plays.
Originally, Amos was going to
direct Johns's play because she was
familiar with it but they wanted to
double cast Giselle and Bridey.
"They couldn't find someone who
could either play this lovely French
woman and then go into this heavy,
big part - this very rural person - so
they decided to offer it to me. And
that's very flattering. It's a lovely
thing to be hie to do."
Amos considers Huron County her
second home to Regina, where she is
a professor in the theatre department
at the university. Her heart lies with
the Festival and she is overjoyed 'to
be here in the 30th season.
"It's amazing to me that it's
survived this long, that it's really still
going and has a life in it. It's
wonderful. And it's survived because
of hard work."
Heatwave opens on July 7 and runs
until Aug. 20. The world premiere
of Cricket arid Claudette is on
Aug. 4 and the show runs until Sept.
4.
Fans list favourites
Carolyn and Chuck Moss of
Listowel are avid fans of the Blyth
Festival, attending four or five plays
each summer.
The most memorable plays for the
Mosses include The Drawer Boy
written by Michael Healey,
Garrison's Garage and He Won't
Come in from the Barn by Ted Johns,
The Outdoor Donnellys.
"I think what Blyth is doing is
wonderful. (The plays) are all
Canadian shows featuring new and
old ones. It's generally just
marvellous," said Carolyn.
She said the whole production of
The Outdoor Donnellys was great
and the concept was fun.
4