Kieran Potter Shortly after Halloween each year, whether you think it’s too early or not early enough, the sights and sounds of the holiday season emerge from hibernation. The first time you realize that song playing on the radio or the loud speakers in the supermarket is White Christmas or Jingle Bells something predictable begins to happen. Your mind recedes into the past. You begin to think about the Christmases and New Years Eves of your childhood, of your early adulthood, of last year and the year before. This emersion in memory builds each day, often bringing with it other memories not directly connected to the holidays. These are the memories of people you might have wished you spent holidays with, the longings and pinnings of yesteryear that bind your experiences together.
Let’s say the melancholic melody of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas leads you to remember a holiday season years ago, when you were say 13 or 14 – a holiday season that was dominated by the thoughts of a girl you wished you were spending the holidays with. Remembering that hormone-laden adolescent wistfulness brings with it flashes of memories from prior months. The memory of the way her braces gleamed under the florescent lights of the school cafeteria. The sound of her laugh when you passed by her in the hallway, where she stood chatting with friends. The feeling of her shoulder against yours as you knelt together in front of a coffin at the school janitor’s wake.
The holidays tend to remind us of these kinds of experiences, of all the things that could have been and never were, all the things that didn’t happen no matter how hard you prayed for them. You might start to wonder, “What if there’s still hope? What if this possibility isn’t just a remnant from the past but a forecast of what could still occur?” Sometimes that kind of hope is what keeps us going. Sometimes it’s our undoing. Sometimes it’s reasonable and sometimes it’s madness – and you can’t always tell which one you’re experiencing.
This is the situation both characters face in First Night by Jack Neary, which opens at The Shadowbox Theatre on December 6th. It’s 1995. Danny Flemming (played by Michael K. Potter) works at a small video rental shop somewhere in New England. He’s worked there for a year-and-a-half after spending the twenty-odd years since college bouncing between uninspiring jobs. He’s directionless, rudderless. But he’s content working at the video shop because he can indulge his love of movies – especially classics from Hollywood’s Golden Age, the sorts of movies that starred people like Spencer Tracy and Claudette Colbert. The comfortable rut of his life is shaken on New Year’s Eve – called “First Night” in New England – when Meredith O’Connor (played by Fay Lynn) appears in the store. You see many years ago back in the eight grade Danny had the sort of intense crush on Meredith that only teenagers can have. But she didn’t seem to know he existed. And then, instead of going on to high school with Danny and the rest of their schoolmates, she ran off to a convent and became a nun. He hasn’t seen her in thirty years.
Unbeknownst to Danny, Meredith also had an intense crush on him during the eight grade and she, too, believed that Danny barely knew she existed. Uncertain of how to cope with her feelings and searching for direction she decided to devote her life to God. But things didn’t work out the way she’d planned. Over the years she began to believe that maybe in her youth what she thought was a decision to run toward something might have been a decision to run away instead. She never forgot about Danny. This New Year’s Eve she’s decided to throw caution to the wind and finally discover whether that teenage crush from thirty years ago could become the relationship she hadn’t been able to admit she’d wanted.
First Night is an odd sort of play, one of the only adult-oriented holiday-themed romantic comedies ever written for the stage. It combines the combative flirtation of romantic comedies from the 1950s with a modern edge, without sacrificing the hope and warmth that people want from a holiday play. Since Post Productions first produced this play last year the company has been inundated with requests to bring it back – not only from those who saw it (some more than once) but also those who didn’t have a chance to see it and found out from their friends what they’d missed. So, for the first time in its history, Post Productions decided to remount a play they’d already produced. We hope you’ll enjoy it as much as audiences did last year. Find out for yourself what happens between Meredith and Danny. Is Meredith crazy to think that a teenage crush can become a real relationship – especially after thirty years of life has been wedged between then and now? The journey is as satisfying as the destination.
First Night by Jack Neary will be performed at The Shadowbox Theatre (1501 Howard ave. – corner of Howard & Shepherd) December 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20 & 21. Showtime 8:00 PM (doors open 7:30). Tickets can be purchased for $25 through postproductionswindsor.ca or at the door (cash, debit, or credit card) if seats are still available. The play is produced by, directed by, and stars Fay Lynn and Michael K. Potter. Posters and programs designed by Kris Simic. Presented by Post Productions in association with Windsor Feminist Theatre. NOTE: $5 from every ticket sold will be donated to Abode Respite Services.
