It’s purely coincidental that Randy Read, who is himself still recovering from a serious injury, will perform as a man recovering from a stroke in New Stages Theatre Company’s staged reading of The Secret Mask on May 7 at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in downtown Peterborough.
The 70-year-old founder and former artistic director of New Stages is returning to the stage for the first time since he suffered a devastating pelvic fracture last November after being knocked off his bicycle by a truck. He will read the role of Ernie in Canadian playwright Rick Chafe’s comedic drama about a man who, after a debilitating stroke leaves him with a speech disorder and memory loss, is reunited with the estranged son he abandoned decades before.
New Stages announced the staged reading, where the actors perform the script without sets or costumes, last September as part of its 25th anniversary season. The Secret Mask, which premiered in 2011 at Prairie Theatre Exchange in Winnipeg, Manitoba, was a finalist for the 2014 Governor General’s Award For Drama. The Ottawa Citizen called it “alternately hilarious and touching” and “a poignant triumph.”
Joining Read for the staged reading will be Gemini-Award winning actor Sergio Di Zio, performing as Ernie’s estranged son George, and Megan Murphy, performing as Ernie’s patient speech therapist Mae. Jade O’Keefe, fresh off her successful run of Gibson and Sons at the Peterborough Theatre Guild, will round out the cast.
In this heartwarming and often hilarious play, Winnipeg resident George is contacted out of the blue by a Vancouver hospital to come help his father Ernie, who has suffered a stroke leaving him with memory loss and aphasia, a speech disorder for which he is receiving treatment from speech therapist Mae.
George hasn’t had contact with his father for almost 40 years, ever since he walked out on his family when George was a toddler. But while George feels hurt and betrayed, Ernie can’t remember his words or where he lives.
Faced with the reality of caring for a father he never knew, George struggles to make sense of their past and to move on with their newly entwined future. The two men must work through their mutual distrust, fractured memories, and a broken looking glass of language.
Playwright Rick Chafe, who was born in Toronto and raised in Winnipeg, based part of The Secret Mask on his experiences with his own father, who developed aphasia after suffering a stroke.
Aphasia is a disorder affecting speaking, understanding speech, or reading or writing as a result of damage to the part of the brain that is responsible for language processing or understanding. The 67-year-old actor Bruce Willis was diagnosed with aphasia last spring (his condition has since worsened with a diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia).
After Chafe’s father suffered a stroke, Chafe and his four siblings took turns visiting their father. During that time, Chafe took notes of both his and his siblings’ observations.
“That is all rolled into one character in the play,” Chafe explains in a 2015 interview with the Prince George Citizen. “I kept feeling like it was exploitative, and I couldn’t do that to my father. But I kept some notes anyway, just to have them later when I could think it over from a place of greater distance.”
While his father’s stroke informed that aspect of the play, Chafe relied on the experiences of a friend who had been abandoned by his father at a young age to develop the tension between George and Ernie.
“He would verify things for me, and gave me the authenticity I needed in the reactions and behaviours of the son in the play,” Chafe says.
The staged reading of The Secret Mask takes place for one night only at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 7th at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in downtown Peterborough.
General admission tickets are $22 ($11 for arts workers, students, or the underwaged), available in person at the Market Hall box office at 140 Charlotte Street from 12 to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday or online anytime at tickets.markethall.org.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be media sponsor of New Stages Theatre Company’s 25th anniversary season.
