By David F. Rooney
How chilling can a play get in just one act? Pretty cold, actually, when the play in question is Le Blessing’s Down The Road, which was performed at the Regent Inn’s Traverse Lounge, last Thursday and Friday by the Revelstoke Theatre Company.
This adult-themed drama explores the fascination many people have with the violent predators that haunt our culture: serial killers.
Directed by Denny Kaulback and produced by his wife, Lyn, the play starred John Devitt as serial killer William Reach and Jana Coes and Dan Sculnick as Iris and Dan Henniman, a journalistic couple contracted by a publisher to write the definitive book about Reach.
The play explores their initial revulsion, timidity and ultimate fascination with Reach who is ably played by Devitt. Reach manipulates the Henniman’s ultimately coming to rule their thoughts and emotional reactions like some kind of dark puppet master.
Many Revelstokians saw the play when it was initially performed here earlier in the year. The company performed it in May at the Kootenay Zone Festival where it won the award for Best Production. These two most recent performances were held as a fundraiser before the troupe heads to Maple Ridge for the provincial Mainstage Festival on July 10.
The Kaulbacks are currently contemplating the next theatrical offering. Something lighter, perhaps?
