By Garth Hardie
The moment I entered the matinee presentation NFOTA’s Fringe Fest in progress at Coburg’s Premier Dance Theatre I was enthralled—transfixed at first by the performances of Celia McBride and Thomas Patfield playing mother and son negotiating new boundaries for their relationship. By the end of the event—a showcase of seven family-friendly 10-minute plays written and performed by dramatists from across Northumberland County—I was convinced I had stumbled upon something special. A gem in the making. A diamond in the rough.

On a lark, inspired by the promise of watching community playwrights and actors bringing their original stories to life, and excited by the prospect of seeing Marcia Johnson, a Jamaican-born and singularly accomplished Canadian dramaturge help them do it, I drove from Toronto to Coburg determined to broaden my perspective on theatrical storytelling beyond the borders of the great big city.

My only regret? I arrived a little late. I missed Anne Page’s mother-teenager comedy Knitting with Spaghetti and Sean Carthew’s humorous ode to conservation, Go Fish. But the superb comedic writing and performances in The Plans by Bellville’s Peter Paylor, the dramatic tension in Tic Talk by Peterborough’s D’Arcy Jenish and the hilarious absurdity of Dave Carley’s Like a Blueberry Goldfish was more than enough to convince me that Northumberland Festival of the Arts is well on its way to becoming a destination of choice among theatre lovers everywhere. In the absence of lavish sets, staging, lighting and orchestration and all the other high-priced accoutrements of commercial theatre the finely honed talents of committed writers and performers (sitting on and standing around a two-person loveseat) depicting universally recognizable aspects of the human condition was undeniable.

For me, the piece de resistance was the finale: Marcia Johnson performed (in addition to her stellar emcee duties) her own play Get Out of Jail Free. Depicting the efforts of a newly divorced septuagenarian mother experiencing freedom from the confines of her marriage, Marcia Johnson (the mother) tells her daughter a riveting tale of how a younger version of herself growing up in Jamaica, first came to exercise the independence and resilience she now cherishes. The story transported me through some of my own experiences of a vibrant theatre community in 1970s Jamaica— Saturday nights at the Barn Theatre (built by dramatist Trevor Rhone from a shed in his backyard, leveraging the talents of pioneers such as Charles Hyatt, Leonie Forbes and Louise Bennett, all of whom later shared their talents in Canada.) I consider Marcia Johnson’s stellar contribution to Fringe Fest an extension of this tradition.

I am convinced that the vibrancy of the theatre community in Jamaica over the years was inspired in part by the immortal dramatist George Bernard Shaw who, on a 1911 visit to the island, challenged local writers and actors: “Unless you do your own acting and write your own plays, your theatre will be no use…”

My advice to artists everywhere would be the same. In fact, I would add the words of another famous dramatist W. B. Yeats: “Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.” Clearly, NFOTA artists are already well on their way!

For my own part, I promise to make it on time (and take some friends) to Fringe Fest next year.