What happens to the core of a community when the structure keeping it in place crumbles and the mosaic of outcasts in that circle shatters? This is what The Hot L Baltimore, an award-winning comedy written by playwright Lanford Wilson, will ask when it hits the stage at UVic’s Phoenix Theatre this month. The production offers audiences a glimpse into the eccentric network of people formed in a decrepit hotel with a burnt out “E” on its marquee.
Bill Allen, a fourth-year theatre major at UVic, wears a couple different hats in the production: he’s an associate director and an actor, playing the role of the coincidentally named Bill Lewis, the night clerk at the hotel. At first, Allen’s initial motivation for auditioning for Bill was their shared name, but he quickly became very attached to the character.
“My love for this character is primarily drawn to the very transparent sense of love that he has for the world and all the characters in the hotel,” says Allen.
Allen is working alongside 14 other actors in the production—a larger-sized cast for the Phoenix Theatre. This allows for a diverse, character-rich story that may leave audiences feeling slightly voyeuristic as they witness the unfolding drama.
“The play follows the residents of this run-down, seedy hotel in 1973 in Baltimore, where there’s an eviction notice looming, they’re about to tear down the building, and we see the course of a single day, starting at the top of the play at 7 am, and then moving through to midnight the following night,” says Allen. “We see the characters have their daily interactions under the context of being kicked out. And it’s really neat in just kind of showing their lives; it’s almost sort of a people-watching experience.”
According to Allen, as well as the characters and vibrant story, audiences can also look forward to an incredible set design that will assist in transporting them back in time, further bringing the story to life.
“The show’s set—the little construction of the hotel lobby that’s been built in the Chief Dan George Theatre—is so impressive, and grand, and simultaneously beautiful while also looking like it’s run down and about to be destroyed,” he says. “It’s really lovely to look at. I remember when all of us in the cast finally moved out of the rehearsal room into the theatre once they started installing the entire set—it was magical in a way. It was quite literally like being transported to this other world.”
The Hot L Baltimore was in the rehearsal stage of production while this article was being written, but Allen’s already witnessing the benefits from the cast being fully immersed in their characters. It’s a process he credits to the direction style of Peter McGuire.
“We’re definitely starting to see these characters come to life,” says Allen. “The entire process, and the way Peter McGuire, our director, is directing, we’re kind of viewing the production as a whole as sort of forming an acting company in and of itself, where everybody is kind of part of this community and we all contribute and give our ideas back and collaborate with each other to bring everything to life. And it’s definitely showing… We are starting to live and breathe these characters and this world, and it’s really exciting.”
Allen says that the core of the production lies in the beauty of the characters existing and interacting with one another in this little world and the complexity that ensues from the threat of that world being stripped away or forever altered.
“The thing I’m hoping that audiences pull out of this production, and see in this production,” he says, “is how sometimes beautiful, and sometimes ugly, sometimes chaotic, and sometimes in-order everything is, and how that fluctuates and can change so quickly, and can affect everyone involved so sporadically and unexpectedly.”
The Hot L Baltimore
Various times, Thursday, March 14 to Saturday, March 23
Various prices, Phoenix Theatre, UVic
finearts.uvic.ca/theatre/mainstage