The Perils of Persephone

by Dan Needles
directed by Sabrina DeSousa
Thurs.-Sat., Jan. 19-Feb. 4, 7:30 p.m.
The Davies Foundation Auditorium
52 Church St., Kingston, ON

Left to right: Doug McNichol, Tony McDermott, Sarah Knight, James Gow and Dale Jones

Anyone who has seen any of the celebrated Wingfield series of one-man shows knows Persephone Township, that fictional rural Ontario locale where ex-stockbroker Walt Wingfield learned that farming isn't quite the bucolic fantasy he thought it was.

Well, times are tough in Persephone Township this summer. The weather has been so dry that the crops are failing, the wells are drying up, and Orval Currie is telling his sister-in-law Marj that she'd better put some extra muffins in the oven "cause yer gonna have forty-five Holstein cows in here tomorrow mornin' lookin' for somethin' to eat."

Lorna Jodoin (left) and Harper Caldwell.

Of course Orval is feeling kind of grumpy anyway because he has hay to get in and his brother, Eldon, seems to be more interested in his job as Reeve of Persephone Township than in running the farm. And Eldon isn't having a good day either, because the local newspaper has got hold of the story that the province is looking for a place to put a toxic waste dump and Eldon is open to talking about putting it in Persephone Township.

So things are already a bit tense around the Currie farm when a truck goes off the road and into the swamp - the very swamp where Orval and Eldon's grandfather found remains of the Currie mammoth many years ago - and the alarm goes up that the truck is carrying nuclear waste. Pretty soon the government is involved, in the form of local MPP Hank Burford, who happens to be the Minister of Environment, and a government spin doctor. At which point you just know not all the bull---- is out in the pasture.

Dan Needles

Best known as the playwright behind the Wingfield series of one-man shows, Dan Needles grew up in Toronto and on his family's farm in Rosemont, Ont.

While editing a local newspaper in Shelburne, Ont., he created the character of Walt Wingfield, a stockbroker turned farmer, who became the central character of seven one-man plays performed by actor Rod Beattie.

Along with the one-man shows, he has written three other plays: The Perils of Persephone, Ed's Garage and The Last Christmas Turkey, and books based on the Wingfield series.

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