North Bay’s premier touring company returns to Stouffville November 5 and 6 with Happy Jack’s Motel, its newest production written and directed by Joshua Bainbridge.
After a two-year hiatus, Proscenium Club is excited to return to Nineteen on the Park with the biggest, most ambitious production the company has produced yet.
Set in the pop culture heyday of the 1980s, Happy Jack’s Motel depicts the fragmentation of the toxic male influence, examining the disappointment and disillusionment with the North American “ideal man” and all that he encapsulates.
Bainbridge, with his darkly comedic approach to theatre that includes a healthy dose of hijinks and just a touch of gore, handles the extravagance of the era with wit and dexterity, taking a scalpel to the Decade of Greed.
Happy Jack’s is a run-down motel along a lonely stretch of highway in rural Ontario. Managed by jaded and failed screenwriter Jack and his good-for-nothing nephew Billy, the motel is frequented by guests who’d rather not be asked any questions.
Jack’s only friends are two women who live and work at the motel, who cannot wait to put Happy Jack’s in their rear-view mirror.
Under threat of a looming thunderstorm the motel finds itself unusually full for the night with each new guest having their own guarded reason for their stay. Against a backdrop of robbery, secrets, sex and jazzercise, Happy Jack’s Motel becomes a dingy battleground offering eight people one last shot at escaping their dark fates.
“I never intended it to be funny,” Bainbridge says. “That just kind of happened. But boy am I glad it did because as uncomfortable and dangerous as the play can feel at times – it is relentlessly funny. And I don’t know about you, but I think we all need a laugh right about now.”
Happy Jack’s Motel runs November 5 and 6 at 7:30 p.m. at 19 on the Park. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit nineteenonthepark.com for more details.
Photo: Jack and his only two friends will will keep you laughing in the Happy Jack’s Motel play which will be showcased November 5 and 6 at Nineteen on the Park.
