HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2005-06-29, Page 16PAGE 16, BLYTH FESTIVAL SALUTE, JUNE 29/30, 2005
The play seen
’round the world
Since it premiered at Blyth in 1979 the comedy-thriller
I’ll Be Back Before Midnight has been seen in 24
countries and 47 of 50 U.S. states
Angie Gei as Jan, cradling her shotgun in the dark, starred in the
premiere of /’// Be Back Before Midnight at Blyth in 1979.
Normally theatre critics like to file
their reviews and slink quietly into
the night, so when Doug Bale, the
sometimes-cranky critic for The
London Free Press showed up at the
cast party following the opening
performance of I’ll Be Back For You
Before Midnight in 1979, everyone
present knew something was up.
Bale brought along with him a
copy of the review he had just sent
by phone to the Free Press.
"Midnight!", it said “is good
enough for Broadway . . . it’s a first
rate thriller that will scare the
daylights out of you . . . The opening
night audier.ce was ready to jump
out of its skin with fright ... It
should become part of the standard
stock repertoire.”
Midnight, under the slightly
shortened title of I’ll Be Back Before
Midnight hasn’t played on
Broadway, though it did play for six
months at the Village Performers
Theatre in New York, but it certainly
upheld Bale’s prediction that it
should be part of the standard
repertoire.
As Blyth Festival patrons leap
from their seats watching a new
production of the play this summer
in the theatre where it all began 26
years ago, audiences in Britain will
also be jumping to Midnight since
the play is in the midst of a national
tour, that will keep it on the road
from May to October.
Around the world, theatregoers
have shelled out more than $10
million for tickets to see the show.
Last year the Pantry Playhouse, part
of the Hilton Hotel in Kingston,
Jamaica performed the play with an
all-black cast. For the Jamaican
production, the Victorian farmhouse
familiar in Canadian productions
became “an old Jamaican Great
House in the hills of St. Ann”.
When the show opened in Blyth in
1979 it was not selling especially
well, but word of mouth, and Bale’s
review, started the phones ringing
and by the end of the opening week,
all the remaining performances were
sold out.
Playwright Peter Colley’s phone
was also ringing from producers
wanting to option the play for a
movie.
In planning her first season in
1980 after taking over from Festival
founder James Roy as artistic
director, Janet Amos planned a
remount of the play. By the time that
play opened, a Toronto production
had already been staged using a
slightly different plot line, one that
has been used in many international
productions since.
The U.S. premiere was at the
historic Theatre-By-The-Sea in
Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In the
years since. Midnight has been
performed in 47 of the 50 U.S.
states.
The British premiere was at the
Salisbury Playhouse and the first
national tour was by The Century
Theatre.
Theatre Ghione produced the
play in Rome. Italy in 1996 after
receiving rave reviews for their
production at the Todi Arts Festiival
in 1995.
Midnight played throughout
various parts of the former
Yugoslavia throughout the troubles
in the early 1990s.
The English Theatre of New
Hamburg produced the first German
production and revived it for its
anniversary season in 2001.
Recently Theater an der
Marschnerstrabe in Hamburg
produced a German-language
production.
Most recently, Nairobi, Kenya,
mounted Midnight, making it the
24th country that has staged
productions.
“It’s funny to me to see old
George, the farmer, as he is
presented in so many different parts
of the world.” Colley said in Special
Memories* a booklet published for
the Festival’s 15th anniversary in
1990. “He was so much a local
character from Blyth, but people
seemed to recognize him as the
universal farmer wherever he
played.”
And so the production comes full
circle to the stage where the
phenomenon began for the 2005
season where the original version
first drew Bale’s prophetic praise in
1979.
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