Boiler Room Suite

With so much theatre happening in Thunder Bay this weekend, it’s easy to miss a more modest production by Rob MacLeod’s Capitol Players and Occasional Arts Inc.

“The Boiler Room Suite” earned the playwright Rex Deverall the Canadian Author’s Association Award in 1978 for its depiction of two homeless people taking shelter in the boiler room of an old hotel in Saskatchewan. As the play unfolds, we learn about the two characters, their lives and dreams, and how they emotionally survive the harshness of their reality.

Aggie Rose, played by theatre veteran Jan Swanson, was a talented, beautiful actress in her youth. Sprugg, poignantly played by Steve Gothard, believes he can make things happen by the power of his imagination. Together, they invent and act out scenes of their own creation, transforming the boiler room into a hotel dining room, a welfare office and Parliament by turns.

They are interrupted by Pete, the hotel caretaker, played by Elliot Cromarty. Pete is obviously conflicted between his compassion and loneliness, and his conservative social dictates that tell him to throw Aggie and Sprugg out into the cold. He is angry and frustrated at how they have, in his view, wasted their lives and gifts. Without defending himself or Aggie, Sprugg tells him simply that Things Happen.

Directed by Jim Hobson with Assistant Director, Sheena Albanese, the performance was moving. The set was a realistic creation of Gregory Gothard and the cast and crew. Ironically, the play was performed in the basement of the old Eatons Building, where the cold concrete surroundings made it easy for the audience to enter into the atmosphere.

Friday and Saturday evenings are the last two performance of Boiler Room Suite. Tickets are $15, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the United Way.