When queer playwright Mark Crawford’s Bed & Breakfast premiered in 2015 at the Thousand Islands Playhouse in Gananoque, the theatre’s then associate artistic director promised himself that if the opportunity to direct the comedy ever arose, he’d jump on it.
To the great benefit of Capitol Theatre audiences, Rob Kempson wasn’t at all careful about what he wished for. Crawford’s play about a gay couple who open a bed and breakfast in a small town runs for 19 performances from June 14 to 30 at the Port Hope performing arts space and Kempson — now the Capitol’s artistic director — is indeed in the director’s chair.
“I couldn’t believe, as a queer person, that I was allowed to see a play about me in my community,” recalls Kempson of his feelings at that time. “To see not only my childhood friends’ parents coming out (to see the play) and having a really authentic and connected experience, but also to see what I had understood to be a relatively invisible queer community coming out.”
“A lot of things are different now about the world, not the least of which is a lot of these small towns are a lot queerer than they were 10 years ago, and certainly a lot more outwardly queer,” Kempson adds.
It’s no coincidence that the 19 performances of Bed & Breakfast run during Pride Month.
“By programming work like this, we’re actively inviting a population to come to the Capitol, and to theatre in general, who perhaps haven’t felt welcome in the past,” Kempson points out. “That active invitation is a really big piece of what I find inspiring about the play.”
Bed & Breakfast, which broke box office records in Gananoque when it premiered at the playhouse’s Firehall Theatre, brings us Brett and Drew, portrayed in the Capitol production by Amir Haidar — the lead in last year’s Little Shop of Horrors — and Shaw Festival regular Kyle Golemba.
Wanting to move out of their Toronto condo into a house, the couple is in the midst of a frustrating house bidding war when Brett’s aunt dies and he unexpectedly inherits her historic home in a quiet tourist town. They decide to make the move and start up a bed and breakfast, but face friction in their new community — discovering the simple life is more complicated than they thought.
Over the course of one year, through the real estate rat race, renovation hell, a farcical opening weekend at their B&B, and encounters with small-town prejudice, Brett and Drew are faced with a big decision: hang in or call it a day.
Combined, Haidar and Golemba portray the play’s 22 characters — male and female, young and old. The very funny and moving result is billed as a heartfelt comedy about ‘being out’ in small-town Canada, skeletons in the closet, and finding a place to call home.
“Ultimately, it’s not a hugely complicated premise,” assesses Crawford (Stag & Doe, The Birds & the Bees, The New Canadian Curling Club) of his play’s storyline.
“The idea came from wanting to write a play that appealed to audiences in places like Port Hope. It has been done in lots of different places, including big cities, but I really wrote it thinking about an audience in a place like where the play takes place — a touristy town, a couple of hours from Toronto, on the water where they could potentially inherit a great big fancy wrap-around porch red brick house. It could very well be Port Hope.”
(Photo via Blyth Festival Theatre website)
“I wanted to start with a premise that was pretty accessible and had lots of room for comedy, but also put a gay couple — their relationship and their challenges and their search for a home together — at the centre of the story,” Crawford explains. “I felt, for a lot of theatres, it was a play they hadn’t seen before. I also felt in 2015 when it premiered, and still feel to this day, that audiences are totally ready for that and will embrace the play with open arms, which is really great.”
Both Kempson and Crawford say for Bed & Breakfast to work, it requires two especially talented and nimble actors to portray the multiple roles the script calls for. Enter Haidar and Golemba.
“We’re talking about two folks who came in with really big ideas for absolutely every character they have to play; who came in with all sorts of creative offers and suggestions,” says Kempson.
“The rehearsal room is very much an exchange of ideas and people bringing different things to the basic premise. When I direct anything, my approach is I put together a skeleton, so if I get hit by a bus someone else could put the people in the places on the set in a way I made the set to do. My hope is that everyone has better ideas than I do on how to use that set, and then we change things as we go.”
“I’ve done a number of multi-character plays where a single actor or a small group of actors play multiple characters,” Kempson says. “It doesn’t feel like you’re directing two people. It feels like you’re directing 20 people, because in many ways you are. We’re thinking about where those people are physically on the set so the other actor knows where they should be looking or turn back to. There isn’t a science to any of that.”
“By hiring these two performers and making sure that their chemistry is right, and their willingness to play is right, my job really becomes more of a facilitator — creating a space where they feel safe to try new things and make mistakes and take big risks and try big choices and make silly faces and all the rest of it.”
Crawford, who has himself performed in the play alongside his partner Paul Dunn (also an actor and playwright), says his script calls for “thoroughbreds” of the calibre of Haidar and Golemba.
“With so many different characters, you have to differentiate them vocally and physically to make the storytelling clear. You meet people and they have wild ways that they speak or wild ways that they move their bodies or behave. What’s fun is you get to shine a light on how weird and wonderful people are.”
Speaking to audiences’ acceptance of Brett and Drew’s relationship, Crawford acknowledges there are theatres that continue to pass on staging Bed & Breakfast.
“My agent and I have said ‘We think this would be a good fit for your theatre’ but they continue to not want to do it. When it’s a two-hander (a play with just two actors), it’s not the money. They can’t tell you that. It does have a pedigree, so it’s not because it’s not a proven success.”
“It’s the content (that’s an issue) for certain theatres, and potentially for certain audiences, although I don’t really buy that because I think audiences live in the world. They have different levels of comfort or understanding. Within any audience, if there are 200 people, there are going to be 200 different experiences related to the content, no matter what the play is.”
To that notion, Kempson notes “Good theatre challenges its audience.”
“It’s about taking a stand and being an organization that wants to live true to its values. If this (the Capitol) is an organization that says it values equity, diversity, and inclusion, if this is an organization that says it values artistic excellence, if this is an organization that values community engagement — all of which are key directions in our strategic plan — then work like this isn’t even remotely provocative. Why? Because it does all those things beautifully.”
Bed & Breakfast will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on June 14 (preview night) and 15 (opening night), June 21 and 22, and June 27 to 29, and at 2 p.m. on June 16 to 20, June 22 and 23, June 25 to 27, and June 29 and 30. As well as the behind-the-scenes discussion between Crawford and Kempson on June 16, there will be a post-show talk with the cast after the June 20 and 27 performances.
Tickets are $48 or $40 for those under 30 (pay what you can for preview night on June 14) and are available at the Capitol Theatre’s box office in person at 20 Queen Street (open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday), by phone at 905-885-1071, or online at capitoltheatre.com, where you can also order tickets for the behind-the-scenes discussion between Crawford and Kempson on June 16.
The presenting sponsor of Bed & Breakfast is Atelier on john in Port Hope.
Meanwhile, in a first for the Capitol Theatre, its production of Bed & Breakfast will head to Winnipeg’s Prairie Theatre Exchange this fall, being staged September 24 to October 6 as part of the theatre’s 2024-25 season.
