Friday:
Golf tournament at Woodland Links Golf Course, 11 amOpening ceremonies 7:00 pm
Farm Show skits, 7:30 pm ($10)
Ball tournament starts, 7:30 pm
Beer tent open, 7:30-12
For Information:
Holmesville General Store
Anne Abbott 519-482-7150
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Media release:
Alison Lobb
519.527.0305, ext 35The Farm Show is back At 8 pm, at the Community Centre, you’ll have an opportunity to see skits from the Farm Show, a unique theatre production highlighting Goderich Township farm life in the 1970s. This show was originally performed in a barn along the Maitland, and proved so popular it was taken across the country.
This is a theatre production considered to be one of the landmarks of Canadian theatre history. The original, staged in 1972 in Ray Bird’s barn on the Maitland Concession in Goderich Township, was a result of a group of Theatre Passe Muraille actors who descended on that farming community for a summer. They held meetings and interviews and worked alongside the farm family of the area, including the well known Lobb family who eventually became the central figures in the play.
The original cast included Janet Amos, Ann Anglin, David Fox, Al Jones, Fina MacDonnell, and Miles Potter, and they were guided by director Paul Thompson. Most of the actual words in the play came direct from the farmers they had interviewed and to whom the play was dedicated. Their production was referred to as “a collective creation” because it was created by the actors themselves.
Eventually, the words were written down on paper by Ted Johns, but by then The Farm Show was already a legend. Johns summed up the experience: “In the early days of that summer of '72, the actors had no idea what they were doing. The dramatic techniques, and the songs, grew out of the actor's attempts to dramatize their discoveries in daily improvisational sessions. At first the result didn't seem like a play: no lights, no costumes, no set, a barn for a theatre, hay bales for seats. Simply pure performance.”
“First in those incredible performances at Clinton, and then again in Toronto, in Saskatchewan in Southern Ontario auction barns, in the palatial art centers of Ottawa, Stratford, and Manitoba, Michael Ondaatje's successful film, a CBC television special, several radio version, and finally crowds of strangers asking , "How did you do this?" No one anticipated the delight people would take in hearing their own language and observing their own culture.”
The production was brought back in July 1985 at the time of the Goderich Township 1-5-0 (sesquicentenial). Not all the original actors were available then, and Terry Tweed stepped in to fill out the cast. Now we have three of the original cast returning – Janet Amos, Ted Johns and David Fox.
They are performing some skits from the original play on Friday July 16th, at 8 pm at the Community Centre in Holmesville. Tickets are only $10.
Call 482-7150 for tickets. Buy early as we expect a sell-out crowd!
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