Playgoers of Lethbridge featured a diverse night of drama at the Sterndale Bennett Theatre, March 13 for the annual One Act Play Festival.
The first play of the night, Jay Northcott’s original work “Feed Me Diamonds” was not only the longest, it was also the strangest and also took home most of the awards for the night including best original script, best overall play and best male actor for Ben Goodwin, who also performed in the last play of the night ‘Pancows” which was the complete opposite.
“Feed Me Diamonds” was a disturbing and thought provoking script which featured three character and a God figure in limbo, who must try to make amends for their actions on earth. Ben Goodwin, playing the self loathing B was there after dying in a car crash after killing his wife. He must learn to love himself as he falls in love with A, played by Becca McDonald, there, I think due to a failed abortion.
Meanwhile B's angry wife, played by Danielle Martens, literally “rips his heart” out and eats it, spitting it into the mouth of McDonald’s character in a particularly stomach churning scene. Everything seemed to end well and left the audience moved. Goodwin was singled out for making a pretty much unlikable character at least sympathetic if not likeable.
The “God” figure played by Jenna Schwartz has her own issues about love to deal with.
Adjudicator Doug MacArthur praised director Alisha Van Wieren for bringing Northcott’s imaginative vision to the stage.
The other plays were not quite as weird, though a lot funnier.
Hatrix Theatre and Playgoers of Lethbridge veterans Monique Prusky and Garrett Bishoff beautifully performed a Jason Katim play called the Man Who Couldn’t Dance about two exes at a party as Eric visits Gail and her newborn and talks about the road not taken.
They added a lot of pathos and understated humour in a touching tale of the path not taken.
Things were down right hilarious with the next two plays.
“Out of the Nest” written by Shelby Thevenot with cast members Brandon Wyck, Alex May and Ethan Sears told the tale of three friends who bond over a hole in the ground which becomes their secret hideaway which expands as they imagine it.
Brandon Eyck was praised for his portrayal of the raccoon obsessed bare Bones Ed, whose name everyone got wrong.
Extra humour came from the other characters mixing up his name.
There was even a multi-media presentation of Bare Bones Ed’s back story.
The last play of the night “Pancow” wouldn’t be out of place as one of New West’s annual children’s productions. Well maybe not. The surrealist romp through writer Aimée McGurk’s imagination featured McGurk and Meredith Pritchard, who received the best female actor award, playing dress-up as old men while “mom” Benjamin Goodwin sat by reading the paper, pouring alcohol into a coffee cup while distracting them by ringing a bell. There was a mysterious beeping sounds and lots of exuberant energy.
