As anybody who has ever been part of a family can attest, dealing with your loved ones can be a far-from-loving activity. The secret to Having Hope at Home, the new dinner theatre production from the Elmira Theatre Company, is to find the funny side of family strife.
“You have to really, really look for the comedy, because if you play it straight it becomes very sad and very dull,” said director Rita Huschka. “You have to find the comedy and point it out, and that happens through the character building.”
![Tom Bolton (above), along with Alex Clark and Becky Branton (feature) are Having Hope at Home in the Elmira Theatre Company production that begins its run November 15.[Will Sloan / The Observer]](https://www.observerxtra.com/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Post_ARTS_Family.jpg)
As the old saying goes, “we laugh, that we may not cry,” and that’s surely advice for the protagonists of Having Hope at Home to take to heart. Written by the Canadian playwright David S. Craig, Having Hope at Home chronicles a family in a small, cold farmhouse as it prepares for the arrival of a baby. Much in the way of inter-generational sparring ensues (“modern medicine meets midwifery head on in a torrent of family feuding,” promises the playwright), but through it all, the family learns to reconnect.
“It’s Canadian, which is really important to us – we like to do a lot of Canadian plays,” says Huschka of the play. “And we thought it was ideal for our theatre company: the size of cast, the age of the cast members, the way it would play for our audience.”
She added, “It’s good for this time of year for our dinner theatre, because a lot of people have their Christmas parties – it really is a message of hope.”
This message of hope is central to the play’s impact, says Huschka. For all their feudin’, fussin’ and fightin’, the six-person cast (essayed by Tom Bolton, Becky Branton, Alex Clark, Rob Gray, Cathy Judd, and Trish Starodub) learn to love again.
“The message is conveyed in the characters in the play: There’s hope for our children, there’s hope for our grandchildren, there’s hope for all of our relationships.
“It’s very poignant and very true,” she continued. “It authentic. There’s humour in pretty much everything that happens in everyday life – we just don’t always see it. It’s my job to try to point it out.”
Of course, you can’t have comedy without well-trained comic actors, and Huschka, an actor herself, has plenty of praise for the roster of veterans and relative newcomers.
“You tend to be more actor-driven as a director if you’ve acted yourself, because you know that, as brilliant as our tech people are, if we had nothing but a bare stage, as long as the acting is good, it will work.”
She continued, “I think timing is instinctive. It can be learned, but it takes a lot of practice. … They’re all in tune now, and when you add an audience, that will change the entire dynamic of the show, because there will be laughter, tears, and everything in between.”
The trials, tribulations, and ultimately deep bonds of family are recurring motifs in the Elmira Theatre Company’s productions (consider its recent production of Norm Foster’s The Melville Boys, or even the shenanigans of The Murder Room). Could this be a conscious decision?
“I don’t know that it’s conscious, but we do consider ourselves a family at our theatre company,” replied Huschka. “Our audience has been with us a long time, and the older you get, the more important you realize family is.”
Having Hope at Home runs at the Elmira Theatre Company (64 Howard Ave.) on November 15-16, 22-23, 29-30 at 7 p.m.; November 17, 24 at 5 p.m.; and November 21, 28 at 8 p.m. (just the play, no dinner). Tickets are $49 for dinner theatre ($19 for the show-only dates), available through the Centre in the Square box office, online (www.centre-square.com) or by phone (519-578-1570).
