Kanata Theatre: the 40^th season (2007-2008)

Scotland Road's creative set design
marks theatre season's finale

     A young woman dressed in turn-of-the-century Victorian clothing is found floating on an iceberg in the north Atlantic. When rescued, she speaks only one word: "Titanic."

The Kanata Theatre presents the play Scotland Road, with opening night on April 28 at Ron Maslin Place.

The play is a mysterious cat-and-mouse game fuelled by one man's obsession with an infamous disaster and a woman who should have died on the Titanic. By play's end, at least one of the characters is dead, all the characters' identities have been questioned, and John and Winifred's shared secret is revealed as they make one final journey up Scotland Road.

Jeffrey Hatcher wrote in in Theatre Magazine (Jan. 30, 1998) that, "Whatever the film, book, or play the story has always been about the sinking. It's never about how we think about the sinking; why the Titanic has become an obsession. What's so missing in a person's life that it can only be found in nostalgia for a disaster they never knew? As far as obsession goes, I'm just the crowd watching from the dock; true believers are on board. It's not about the Titanic; it's about the ice."

Set designer and visual effects co-ordinator, Paul Gardner, is a-true believer... on board" for Kanata Theatre's last play of its 40th season.

"In discussing this play with the director, we came to the conclusion that it would work better for us if we dispensed with the usual type of set," he said.
The play calls for the use of projected images at several times, but fixed walls get in the way of this, and moving sets are too cumbersome and break the mood of the play. The set is stripped down to the bare minimum, playing up die atmosphere of isolation, as on an iceberg floating in the sea, and leaving the audience to fill in the blanks with their imagination instead of their eyes.

Also on board is lighting designer Karl Wagner.

"Hatcher's play not only examines the Titanic from another perspective, it challenges the stage crew to approach the production from a different direction," said Wagner.

This production of Scotland Road is fortunate to have the creative talent of local composer  Howard Sonnenberg and Kanata Theatre president, Robert Fairbairn, designing the soundscape for the show.

Kristy Alien and Stavros Sakiadis star in Kanata Theatre's Scotland Road, a play showing at the Ron Maslin Playhouse from April 28 to May 9. Tickets are $15 each and curtain is 8 pm. sharp.