Hapax Theatre is returning to the stage after two years forced hiatus due to COVID with Castle on the Farm. Director Heather Jarvie says the play—which was written by local playwright Alaina Baskerville-Bridges—is a touching and funny one-person show that follows main character 14-year-old Layla.
“She is starting her first year in high school, first day of Grade 9,” says Jarvie. “Her father has recently been incarcerated at Wilkinson Road Jail, so that’s the castle on the farm. It’s her kind of processing what it means for her school life, for herself, for her family life, how it affects her relationships with her friends and her family.”
Jarvis says that in the two years since Hapax closed their doors the meaning of the story actually shifted a bit for her.
“I’m hoping that audiences will be open to this kind of new idea that, yes, it’s about Layla, and, yes, it’s about overcoming challenges and navigating things, but I think it’s also a really important message about mental health and how we take care of ourselves,” she says. “Layla has this really hard process she has to go through, and throughout the play we see her kind of having to keep coming back to these touchstones—this is what’s good for me, and what is good for my mental health? And how do I put that into my every day? And I think that coming out of the pandemic, this is something that we kind of can all relate to. I know that I certainly have looked at my mental health in a different perspective over the last few years. And Layla really gave me some insight.”
This is also a concern in the theatre community, something Jarvie is trying to change by, for example, having an understudy to ensure that the main actor can take whatever time she needs off and the show can still happen.
“One of the things that we recognize is no longer sustainable in the theatre world, especially in community theatre, is this expectation that you go on if you’re sick, you go on if you’re heartbroken, you go on if there’s been a death in the family, no matter what, the show goes on. And that is such a deeply toxic mentality, when it means that you’re putting it before your own well-being.”
Jarvie hopes the audience will be engaged with the play; she says that she falls a little bit in love with the character of Layla each time.
“Be ready to let your heart go to this young person,” she says. “And I hope that they walk away a little bit lighter. Even if all they did was spend 70 minutes not thinking about what was going on in their own life outside, I hope they walk away with some lightness and some breathing room.”
Castle on the Hill
Various times, Thursday, March 17 to Saturday, March 26
$18, Paul Phillips Hall
hapaxtheatre.com