When Debra Bob was first asked if she would be interested in directing David Lindsay-Abaire’s play Rabbit Hole, she was a little unsure –– to put it mildly.
The play’s premise, about how a couple deals with the loss of their young child, is enough to scare off the most hardened artist, let alone Bob, who is a mother of eight.
A member of Vernon’s Powerhouse Theatre since performing in The Crucible in 2005, Bob had also just come off the local stage playing Mejra in Colleen Wagner’s harrowing tale, The Monument, which won best play at last year’s Okanagan Zone (O-Zone) Drama Festival, and she was still emotionally exhausted from that experience.
“When (Powerhouse president Sarah McLean) brought me the script to take a look at it, and asked if I would be willing to do the play, I was like, ‘after The Monument, really?’ But then I read the script and that night I called her and said I would be honoured to do the play,” said Bob.
Rabbit Hole, which opens April 20, will be Powerhouse’s entry into this year’s O-Zone, which takes place in Kelowna in May.
It also hasn’t hurt matters that Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize winning script has just been turned into a film, starring Nicole Kidman, who was nominated for a best actress Oscar for her role as grieving mother Becca.
Bob is quick to point out that although the story-line is the same, the film and play are quite different.
“There’s a paradigm between the character Nicole Kidman plays to the one our actress (Katja Burnett) plays. First, our Becca, in real life, is only 23 years old,” said Bob. “This is a modern play, and I chose a young cast because I wanted the audience to recognize that tragedy doesn’t just happen to older people.”
Known previously for his more absurd and farcical plays, Lindsay-Abaire has said he wanted to write a play that was more “naturalistic,” so he heeded the words of a former instructor who said to write about the thing that frightens you most.
At the time, the playwright was also the father of a four year old, so he wrote about how a family copes with a death of a child, and it went from there.
“He is a word master at his craft,” said Bob. “The writing is beautiful as is the phrasing and there are nuances in the dialogue that let you know what will happen.”
Bob, herself, heeded the words that Lindsay-Abaire wrote in his director’s notes, which she has passed on to her five-member cast.
“He said ‘this is not a neat and tidy story. I don’t want grief-wracked teens on the stage or an over-amount of tears. Please resist the urge to resolve this for them,’” said Bob. “The play shows the emotions in a very human way. It is also a collaborative art. I’ve asked each actor to contribute his/her vision. And the work they do off the stage is just as important as what they do on.”
The cast will get some insight from an expert when Caravan Farm Theatre’s artistic director, actress Courtenay Dobbie, comes to assist them next week.
“The O-Zone has hired her as a theatre consultant,” said Bob. “We’re excited to see where she can take our play.”
Rabbit Hole starts nine months after its lead characters, Becca and Howie (played by Kelowna’s Zyan Panagopoulos), lose their four-year-old son, Danny, in a car accident.
“Their marriage is strained and they are barely holding it together,” said Bob whose lead actress, Burnett, has to carry a heavy part of the load. “My Becca is a very controlled person, in that if she falls apart, she will never put the pieces back together, so she tries to control and excel at something.”
In this case, she becomes like Brie of Desperate Housewives fame, and dives into being a gourmet baker.
“She has had to deal with a lot. She is overloaded, physically and mentally, but is carrying on,” said Bob.
Howie, in the meantime, is still in mourning. Every night he heads up to Danny’s bedroom, which is still in the same state as it was before he died, to play a video tape of his son (whose voice is played by Maia Nunn) playing with the family dog.
“Howie is a gentle spirit and his son is still in his world,” said Bob, who found Panagopoulos after hearing him speak when Powerhouse was tearing down the set for their last play, Lend Me a Tenor.
“I heard his voice in the auditorium, and asked him to read for me. He turned out to be a lovely character.”
Just as important are the back stories of all the characters, including Becca’s hard drinking mom Nat (played by Joanne Feenstra, known for her work with Armstrong’s Asparagus Theatre) and Becca’s younger sister, feisty Izzy (played by newcomer to the stage, 18-year-old Becky Turner of Kelowna), who have their own issues.
Their dialogue, especially Nat’s, give the play a life of its own, including some much-needed humour, said Bob.
“At one point, Becca slaps a woman in the supermarket, and Izzy is like ‘way to go, Becca!’ They have an interesting dynamic.
“Nat also had a son named Arthur who died of a heroin overdose when he was 30. Nat often tries to comfort Becca by telling her she knows how it feels to lose a child.”
This as you can imagine doesn’t go down well, but reconciliation does come between mom and daughter towards the end of the play, added Bob.
Then there’s Jason (Clarence Fulton Secondary student Ross Freeman-Marsh, last seen in Powerhouse’s Grease), the 16-year-old boy who is the driver of the car that kills Danny when he swerves to miss hitting the family’s dog.
“He’s a bit of a nerdy kid. He comes to Becca after to say he may have been going too fast,” said Bob. “Becca’s curious about Jason, and she thinks about what could have been: He’s graduating and embarking on things that Danny will never have. They have an interesting conversation.”
Just as important to the action on stage, is what’s going on behind the scenes. Set designer Chris Bayne has created a bare bones set, with the frame of room, hollow inside.
“I wanted it to look like you were looking in the window of a house, observing this family,” said Bob. “The house reflects the insides, the guts.”
Rabbit Hole runs at the Powerhouse Theatre April 20 to 23 and April 26 to 30 at 8 p.m. with a matinee April 24 at 2 p.m. Tickets are available at the Ticket Seller box office, 549-7469, www.ticketseller.ca. Warning: this play contains sensitive material for an adult audience and some strong language.
