Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Pessimistic playwright Panych says his glass is actually half full
BRUCE MONK PHOTO Enlarge Image
Michael Spencer-Davis, left, as Holloman and Matthew Edison as Lawrence.
Two salesmen meet in a bar.
Lawrence, an obnoxious optimist, is ultra-confident and smugly pleased with himself.
Theatre Preview
Lawrence and Holloman
Prairie Theatre Exchange
Opens Thursday, to Feb. 28
Tickets at 942-5483 or www.pte.mb.ca
Holloman, whose name alludes to T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men, is a beaten-down sad sack, pessimistic to the point of hopelessness.
The pair's lives become bizarrely entwined in Lawrence and Holloman, a dark, absurdist two-man comedy in which playwright Morris Panych explores life's unfairness and how each of us deals with it.
The show opens Thursday at Prairie Theatre Exchange, directed by PTE artistic director Robert Metcalfe.
The prolific Panych is one of Canada's most acclaimed theatre writers and directors. Perhaps best known for The Overcoat, he's a two-time winner of the Governor General's Award for drama, most recently for Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, seen at PTE in 2006.
His comedies include Vigil, in which a man waits impatiently for his aunt to die, and The Ends of the Earth, about two paranoid characters, each convinced the other is out to get him.
"I am actually considered to be an extreme pessimist by almost everybody who knows me," says Panych, 57, by phone from his Toronto home.
"And yet in truth, I believe I'm an optimist. I believe there is the possibility to overcome the things that are handed to you... I love people who make something out of nothing."
The Edmonton-bred playwright, who "shamefully admits" he hasn't been to Winnipeg in more than 25 years -- and can't make it for PTE's production -- is optimistic about the actors tackling the 1998 play here.
He has directed both Matthew Edison (Lawrence) and former Winnipegger Michael Spencer-Davis (Holloman) and praises their work.
"I think they're better suited to these parts than anybody I've ever heard of playing them, including the actors that I cast," he says.
For Spencer-Davis, who starred in an Edmonton production of Vigil, Panych's trademark is "a black, ironic view of the world, and yet underneath it all is, I think, a heart that cares a great deal."
The playwright says one of the inspirations for Lawrence and Holloman was his aunt, who has never allowed multiple sclerosis to make her bitter.
"She is now in a wheelchair as a paraplegic, legless, almost blind, but she has this core of strength," he says. "It doesn't really matter if it's a belief in God or a belief in oneself. There is this strong core in some people that is both awe-inspiring and irritating."
Panych recalls that he underwent a surprising transition while writing Lawrence and Holloman, from finding the optimist insufferable to siding with him. "My attitude changed... and I kind of hope the audience goes through that experience."
The play turns increasingly outlandish, which is not unusual for a Panych piece.
"In order for (my plays) to work, the actor has to really, really ground himself in the truth," he says. "In a play where the circumstances are so crazy... if you don't find the truth, the scenes can just come off as silly and kind of cartoonish."
He has a new play called The Trespassers, about a dysfunctional family, that premiered at Stratford last year. He suggests that a Winnipeg production of it might finally get him here.
"I think Steven Schipper (of Manitoba Theatre Centre) was going to do it for a while, and then he backed down -- I don't know why. Maybe somebody will convince him to do it."
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 10, 2010 D3
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