Sarah Williams
Beaver Staff
Lennox Community Theatre is bringing the holiday tradition of pantomime back to the stage with Beanstalk: The Panto.
The play is written and directed by Michelle Dorey Forestell with Amy Mack as the stage manager. Promising laughter for all ages, the show is one of the first the local theatre company has been able to take to the stages since the beginning of the pandemic.
Forestell spoke with the Beaver to shed light on the impetus for the play as well as the hard work that made Beanstalk: The Panto a reality.
Forestell noted the pandemic shuttered the doors of the theatre for a few years, but that it’s “terrific” to be back on stage.
“Like most in-person arts venues, things were shut down for an extended period. In fact, I directed a holiday play in 2019 and the spring show following it had to be postponed. It finally just opened this season as our fall opener, The Sweet Delilah Swim Club. So, it is terrific to be getting back on stage and seeing all the people who make our shows function,” she said.
Forestell spoke enthusiastically about the tradition of panto, wherein a familiar fairy tale or nursery story is infused with slapstick comedy. She commented that her inspiration to produce such a play stemmed from her own experience acting in a panto several years ago.
“I’d been toying with the idea of writing my own panto since 2016 when I played the Fairy Godmother in Richard Linley’s Cinderella. It was my first panto experience and I had so much fun. The pantomime tradition in Great Britain typically involves music, topical jokes, and slapstick comedy and is based on a fairy tale or nursery story, usually produced around Christmas,” said Forestell. “I love the idea of the tradition of getting a community together to do a show based on an old tale that everyone knows but putting a hilarious twist on it. It is just a great way of getting together with friends and family to share a lot of laughs. Honestly, is there anything better than watching people you know get up on stage and act foolish together? It really makes a joyous start to the Christmas season.”
From volunteers who made props and costumes to the actors on stage, and everything in between, Forestell credited a host of people for bringing the play to the stage.
“There are 18 cast members, but it takes so many more people working behind the scenes to make this kind of show happen. We have volunteers making props and costumes, selling tickets, taking care of publicity, building the impossible set I asked our carpenters to build me, amazing artists painting the stage, and designing the lighting and effects. I have the best stage manager in the world, Amy Mack, who is keeping it all, and me, organized,” Forestell enthused.
With many participants in the play being local, Forestell noted how inspiring it can be to count talented thespians as neighbours.
“I am very grateful that I knew many of the fine talented people who auditioned, including my brother who is amazingly funny, and my son Jack who I really wrote the character Jack for. But I also got to meet some new friends who are just amazing and are new to the theatre or just new to our area and stage,” said Forestell. “It’s always incredible to see how much talent is around our communities. I’ve got kids from both Southview and JJ O’Neill schools. I love watching kids take their first steps onto the stage and really grow along with the cast. It’s an intergenerational activity and the friendships made are fascinating.”
Forestell spoke of the confidence that acting can instill in young children, including her son and others involved in the play.
Apart from the challenge of committing to the play before having finished writing it, Forestell described the literary calisthenics involved with adding characters to the traditional tale of Jack and the Beanstalk while also infusing it with moral conundrums.
“I realized about two scenes in that Jack and The Beanstalk isn’t a very complicated story at all, and also doesn’t have much of a moral to it – I mean Jack is a lazy kid, who gets swindled of his cow for magic beans, gets sent to bed without supper, then basically becomes a thief with his mother’s approval,” quipped Forestell. “So, I had to add a bunch of characters to make a good yarn.”
The cast also required some rearranging, after some members became ill.
“We have had some difficult health issues with some cast members, so we had to do some cast changes. I’m playing a character now, which I didn’t intend, and my daughter graciously joined the cast just last week to fill in when another young person had to drop out,” Forestell explained.
Like most worthwhile endeavours, the newest production from the Lennox Community Theatre has involved copious hours of study and practice. Forestell noted the cast has been rehearsing together about 10 hours per week since Thanksgiving and that individual cast members spend hours at home learning songs, lines, and dance moves.
Tickets for Beanstalk:The Panto can be purchased from https://www.lennoxtheatre.ca/. Cash only tickets may be purchased at the door, if available.
The play runs at 7 p.m. Nov. 25, Dec. 1, 2, 8 and 9. Matinee shows at 2 p.m. will be held on Nov. 26, 27, Dec. 3,4 and 10.
Mask wearing, while not mandatory, is encouraged.